


Four Bullets and a Dirty Smile

by thefrenchmistake



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It, Fuck Canon, Grant Ward Redemption, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Kara Lynn Palamas & Grant Ward Friendship, Leo Fitz is a precious cinnamon roll, Not Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 2 Compliant, Not Canon Compliant, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Slow Burn, Working through their issues like grown ups
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:00:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 46,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23082877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefrenchmistake/pseuds/thefrenchmistake
Summary: “Did no one teach you to duck when fired at ?” He hisses in her ear.She would answer, she would, except she still can’t quite understand that the government is shooting at her and that Grand fucking Ward of all people is saving her ass. Last time she saw him, he was bleeding out on the floor after she shot him four times
Relationships: Grant Ward & Agents of SHIELD Team, Kara Lynn Palamas & Grant Ward, Leo Fitz & Grant Ward, Leo Fitz & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Phil Coulson & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Skye | Daisy Johnson/Grant Ward
Comments: 99
Kudos: 227





	1. There is blood in our wake

**Author's Note:**

> Back with Skyeward ! Still not over them, still not Shield friendly and still completely opposed to Kara and Grant's sorry excuse of a relationship.   
> Enjoy !

This is fucking surreal.

She has seen people become half robots, she has seen a 90 years old dude fight an army of aliens in New York alongside a green giant and spies and a god and a man in a flying iron suit, she has seen a guy control weather, her father bash heads in with his bare hands and her mother come back from the dead, and yet this exceeds them all, oddly.

Her brain doesn’t even register it, that’s how surreal it is.

And then bullets whistle too close to her ears and Grant Ward’s hand brings her down behind a bush, not caring one second for the leaves hitting her face.

“Did no one teach you to duck when fired at ?” He hisses in her ear.

She would answer, she would, except she still can’t quite understand that the government is shooting at her and that Grand fucking Ward of all people is saving her ass. Last time she saw him, he was bleeding out on the floor after she shot him four times; you can cut her some slack.

“Ward,” she finally whispers, and it should hold fear or surprise or hatred. It doesn’t. Even to her own ears, it sounds so fucking relieved. There is blood in her mouth, but his name tastes sweet on her tongue and she can’t help gripping his arm, moved by the urge to pull him closer and closer and closer to make sure he’s alive (she didn’t kill him, she is not a murderer, she didn’t kill him).

He grabs her wrist, merely spares her a glance. The bullets have died down.

“Let’s move.”

She does as he says -because she’s not dumb, she wants to survive this thank you very much- and then they’re running for their life in this damn forest like they’re partners and were never anything more or anything less.

Far away in her mind, behind the adrenaline, the fear of the chase and the incredulity, she wonders what they are now, if they are anything.

“I thought you were dead,” she blurts out once they’re in a car and he’s no longer shooting suspicious glances behind him. She takes advantage of his apparently distracted state (although she knows she could not move a finger without him noticing) to look at him- really look at him- for the first time in months.

He has let his beard and hair grow, separating himself from the SO persona he had played a lifetime ago, separating himself from both the Wards she knew (the one she kissed and the one who killed Victoria Hand and Kenning).

She likes it (she remembers the feeling of his stubble under her fingertips when she took his chin to pull him closer and kiss him deeper at Providence).He stiffens so suddenly in his seat she wonders if he’s pulled a muscle or something. His eyes don’t leave the road when he answers flatly:

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“That’s not…”

“Are they following us ?”

She bites her lip, looks in the rear-view mirror then turns around for good measure, checking the road behind them.

“No.”

“Good.”

“You’re going to explain ?”

“What does it fucking look like ?”

“I have no idea,” she says, gritting her teeth, nails digging in her thighs. “Which is why I’m asking you.”

“Your team asked me to find you.”

Her heart misses a bit.

“Are they ok ?” she whispers.

Ward nods - and she still can’t believe she’s in a car with Grant Ward, being saved by him. That’s…

Is it that surreal though ?

“They’re fine.”

Short, perfunctory, professional. She ignores the tremor in her hands. She can’t afford losing control anymore, because now she can bring buildings down and kill people. She doesn’t want Ward to know that (he probably already does). 

“Did Coulson put you up to this ?”

“Fitz convinced him.”

It doesn’t even surprise her- it should though, shouldn’t it ?

Fitz is the one who hates Ward the most (she remembers the footage vividly -hypoxia, the oxygen dropping and Ward suffocating with an open mouth, not unlike the time she watched him have a heart attack) yet he is probably, in an odd way, the closest to the ex-agent, and undoubtedly the best of them all.

“I don’t underst…”

“Look,” he interrupts, knuckles white on the steering wheel, “I’m not here to make small talk. I’m doing someone a favor and then I’m out and you won’t have to see me again.”

Skye-Daisy, her name is Daisy now- opens her mouth, but then he shifts awkwardly in his seat and her eyes are drawn down.

“You’re bleeding,” she states dumbly.

“No shit.”

She should shut her mouth, let him drive until he fucking faints and leave him on the side of the road.

Except he just saved her life; except, despite all of… everything, she is _glad_ to see him; except there is something in her guts, a compass that seems to lead her to him, to try to _fix_ things.

Years later, she still won’t know why she chose to follow her instinct over her training

“You should pull over. It might be serious, you…”

“It’s not.”

His immediate refusal makes her angry and she turns her full body to face him even as he avoids at all price to look at her.

“You don’t know that.”

“Drop it.”

“You could bleed out,” she pushes, and she doesn’t know why, she’s not supposed to give a shit about him or anything.

“Then I guess it’ll just finish what you started, eh ? Why would you fucking care ?”

And that’s… a good point, for starter, but that hurts a whole fucking lot as well, even when it shouldn’t. Nothing Grant Ward says to her should hurt - she’s past that.

She crosses her arms on her chest and turns around, facing the window.

“I don’t.”

The motel where they stop is a typical hide-away motel, which means there is mold on the ceiling and walls and it smells like someone died as soon as they enter the reception room. Ward’s hands are busy taking two huge black bags out of the trunk so she goes to the reception, where an exhausted-looking guy is slumped in his chair like the world is a big swamp and he’s just a parasite in it.

“Hey.”

Ward comes to her elbow, a bag in each hand and she knows they’re heavy as fuck and he’s bleeding but she doesn’t offer her help because she already knows he wouldn’t accept it (and she doesn’t want them to fight in front of the receptionist).

The clerk doesn’t even blink at the blood on his shirt or at the sweat on their faces, simply states:

“25$ for a room.”

“Two rooms, and discretion,” Ward says, throwing eighty on the counter.

The clerk shrugs, going in the back to get the keys (probably) and Skye turns towards him, face pinched exasperatedly.

“We should get one room only.”

He barely sends her a glare, assessing the exits and entry ways in case a rushing escape is needed (she knows, she did the same on entering the motel).

“For security reasons,” she pushes on, pissed off he’d put their safety at risk because he can’t stand being in the same room as her (then why did he save her, why did he save her ?).

The clerk comes back before he can answer and she doesn’t know if she is grateful for that or not. In any case, the key is cold in her hand when she grasps it, and Ward doesn’t pass her one of the bags. She doesn’t ask.

When the number 21 stares at her, she opens the door and enters the room, knowing he’s following. Inside, he lets one bag drop to the ground in next to the only chair, doesn’t even look at her. He turns around to leave and it’s a mistake, her brain screams, it's a mistake...

Her hands are fidgeting on the key and she still isn’t quite sure about what happened in the last hours, so she tries:

“We should really…”

“I’m not really keen on sleeping in the same room as you.”

“What, you think I’m gonna shoot you in your sleep ?” she snaps, hurt and guilt morphing into anger.

He stares at her in the doorway, clenched jaw and, always now, dark and hard eyes.

“Can you blame me ?”

She does. She can’t, but she does blame him, and herself, and her father, and Hydra. But it doesn’t change anything, so she doesn’t answer.

The door slams behind him when he leaves, and the room is suddenly far too quiet for the loud turmoil of her conscience.


	2. Reaping what we sow (between wounds and nightmares)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is alive, and maybe now they can… They can get past this. She has to believe they can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning, this took a Skye/Shield team non-friendly turn (except for Fitz because he is the most precious cinnamon roll to ever live), so don't be surprised !  
> Enjoy !

Skye - Daisy- knows she is a bit hyperactive. She often got scolded for it in the convents, in the boarding schools, even within the Rising Tide. Too enthusiast, unable to stay in the same place for too long (except a home, she would’ve stayed somewhere that felt like home).

So it doesn’t really come as a surprise when, thirty seconds after his exit, she finds herself opening the bag and shuffling through it, looking for the first aid kit she knows is there.

There are some clothes (all colorful, purple and red, and she doesn’t have time to dwell on that), ammunitions, two knives, a holster, but no gun. She sets the pinch in her heart aside alongside the idea that there is no gun because he doesn’t trust her with it, and settles on finding the safety kit, taking it out of the bag. She hesitates with her hand on the handle of her door, unsure, while her grip on the box is too tight.

It unsettles her, this new Ward, his behavior towards her.

And yet, she doesn’t know what else she should’ve expected.

He isn’t going to forget and forgive, that’s not how the world works. He isn’t going to seek revenge either, she knows that for sure, it isn’t who he is. He isn’t a cold-blooded serial killer, he isn’t a simple-minded villain, he is… He is complicated in his own way and it makes her uneasy, because she doesn’t know where she stands with him, what she wants from him.

She simply knows he is alive.

He is alive, and maybe now they can… They can get past this. She has to believe they can.

Skye nods to herself, a new determination settling between her ribs as she sets her shoulders straight. She opens her door and crosses the hallway in one stride, knocking softly on his own door.

She is not stupid, walking in without a warning would get her a bullet in the head.

But hey, he isn’t answering, and she finds herself a bit reckless when he is near, a bit like the naive girl she was when they first met (except nothing is like that anymore).

So she presses down on the handle, cautiously passes her head in the room to see if he is anywhere in sight; he isn’t. 

Which means he is in the bathroom.

She steps inside and her heart is close to hammering in her chest (this feels more dangerous than when bullets were flying towards her), but she steps forward.

The door flies open, and she ignores his surprised exclamation as he draws his gun to her head.

She faces him dead on. And there it is again, in his eye and every part of his face, clear as day; he’ll shoot her if he has to. If it comes down to it.

She looks down.

“Let me help.”

He snorts, which, unexpected, strikes something deep in her chest.

“No thanks.”

It’s dark, violent, resentful. She gets frustrated, because it’s easier to be pissed off than to acknowledge why it impacts her so much.

“Come on, that’s…” She doesn’t even know what she’s gonna say, what she wants from him. “You can’t… You can’t just stitch it up by bending forward, your stitches…”

“I’ve stitched myself up plenty of time before. So no. Get out.”

Her heart clenches, so do her fingers on the first aid kit.

“Yeah,” she begins, ignoring the last part of his sentence, “but you don’t have to right now.”

“Don’t I ?”

And fuck, fuck, here is the glare again, this deep, black and unforgiving stare.

“No. You don’t.”

He breathes out a sigh, like she’s annoying, like he’ll do her a favor if he says yes.

Would he ? She doesn’t know anymore, she’s so fucking lost in her own head all the time.

She kneels on the side of the bathtub, and when he doesn’t react, she pushes his shirt up with shaking fingers that avoid his skin. He tenses.

There are two wide, ugly scars that reopened, the stitches coming out of the flesh. S

he feels sick to her stomach because this is it, this is what she became, isn’t it ?

She did this to him.

She consciously, willingly did this to him when he had his back turned because he wanted to get her out of this hellhole. And maybe he deserved punishment, or revenge, or whatever she called it at the time, but he didn’t deserve _this_ , she’s pretty sure.

She fired without an ounce of doubt and left him to bleed out on the floor without a second thought or even a glance.

So. Yeah.

Her hand is still shaking when she picks up some gauze in the kit, holding his shirt in her other hand far too tightly, and her teeth bury themselves in her lower lip. She starts to clean the wounds as gently as she can while he stays frozen, hard as a statue. Eventually, the silence is too thick and the room starts to cave in on them.

“Is it the first time they’ve reopened ?” She finds it in herself to ask, and thank fuck her voice doesn’t waver, like she doesn’t actually care what his answer is. The tears in her eyes tell another story, but he can’t see them.

“Third time. You can’t really stay put and rest in my line of work.”

Yeah. There are wounds that refuse to heal easily.

She makes a noncommittal sound, trying to blink away the proof that May’s training on keeping emotions hidden and controlled didn’t work as well as she thought, but there are two fucking holes staring right at her, all bloody and probably infected.

“What is it anyway ? Your line of work ?” _Now that Garrett and Hydra are both gone_ , is implied.

He is pissed off, she can feel it in the straight line of his body and the hole his glare burns in the side of her head. She carefully avoids any physical contact, pressing the gauze as softly as possible against his skin (and the holes, the scars) to wash the blood away.

“None of your business,” he replies, and she wants to be a child for a minute, throw a fucking tantrum, because what will it take for him to forgive her, what will it take for him to get out of both her life and her head, what will it take for the world to let her _breathe_ ?

She’s cleaning the bullet holes after he saved her life -again- and all she’s ever given him, it seems, are those scars on his side and the deep shadows in his eyes.

She might be more similar to his family than she wants to admit.

They all broke a different part of him.

She focuses on cleaning, head lost, until he swaps her hand away after what feels like a small eternity.

“What are you…” she begins, but he won’t meet her eye when he gets up, stepping aside so there is more distance between them in the small room.

“It’s clean.”

She’s lost at the realization that yes, the wounds are clean, and must have been for some time; he stares above her head, asks tightly:

“I need the needle and thread.”

Skye turns towards the kit, an awful churn in her stomach (guilt). Her fingers close around the cold needle, and the thread, and before she turns around, she exhales and asks:

“Can I do it ?”

“For fuck’s sake, are you serious ? Fuck no,” he exclaims, and she can’t help it, God, she can’t help the tears that fall and the guilt in her throat and she just needs something, she needs something from him even though she doesn’t have the right to, even as she doesn’t know what it is.

She looks up and there are drops on her cheeks, she can feel them, but she meets his eye.

His expression falters, something like pain splattered on it for just a microsecond before he gathers himself and puts a controlled mask on. He’s far too good to show the emotions she wants him to show, and too smart to say what she wants to hear.

His jaw clenches, and he stares her down; she’s on his knees in front of the man she almost killed and she has never felt more vulnerable as when he grits his teeth, gestures to the door and says:

“Get out.”

“Ward….” She begins, standing up. He steps backwards, shaking his head.

“Get the fuck out, Skye.” Daisy, it’s Daisy now, or is it ?

“Ward,” she repeats, choked up and crying. He looks her dead in the eye, bloody hands and furious orbes.

“You don’t get to cry about this.”

And then the door is closed and she’s out of the bathroom, far away from him, but she still can’t breathe.


	3. Begging forgiveness (but remorse tastes sour)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi,   
> so sorry for the delay (thank you writer's block). I know the first chapters kind of deal only with both main characters and how they cope (or not) with what happened, but the others will surface at one point, promise !  
> Meanwhile, enjoy !

Skye is not, by definition, a fidgety person. She knows she can be too much sometimes, a little too excited or enthusiast (although that last point might not be true anymore), but she has never been fidgety.

Yet, her leg won’t stop jerking up and down, and her fingers drum against her knee, her thigh, her arm. She doesn’t exactly know what she’s waiting for. Probably for him to come to her and explain.

Probably.

The holes are still painted in her mind, a scorching thought she can't shake off. 

It seems their relationship (if one can call it that) has taken on a different shade, hasn’t it ?

It’s odd, now.

She can’t really pinpoint what makes her so desperate next to him, what makes something inside yearn for his attention and forgiveness and…

She stops her inner ranting. Shifts her attention to the walls’ dirty yellow paint, chipping away, and the hole the size of a fist in the plaster which an half-ass attempt at covering it up didn’t arrange things.

This motel room must have seen worse than her; worse than them both, she isn’t sure.

Her nostrils flare as she thinks about his behavior, because you know what ? Yeah, she shot him. After he betrayed all of them, after he almost killed FitzSimmons, after he played her like a fucking amateur, after he _kidnapped_ her.

It doesn’t matter, that he thought he was helping, giving her back the one thing she always yearned for. It doesn’t matter, that his cell was too small and his mind a mess. It doesn’t matter, that he tried to kill himself twice and that, for some reason, Coulson and May kept it from her.

She remembers thinking, when they announced they would keep Ward’s capture a secret from Fitz, “ _it’s for his own safety, of course they’re right_ ”.

So there is no way not to wonder: why didn’t they tell her he was suicidal ? That he wanted to talk to her only ? That he tried, desperately, to slit his wrists and bash his head in ?

Would it have changed anything, had she known ?

In any case, it doesn’t matter.

She gets up, paces in the too small room.

What now ? She supposes she’ll get back to her team-her family.

She supposes he’ll go back to… Tending to his wounds alone.

She stops. Exhales deeply.

She doesn’t like it, that unknown power he holds over her.

She doesn’t like it, the ignorance of why he saved her, why she’s here, why he’s here, why…

Skye shakes her head.

Now that’s enough. He can get pissed all he wants, but the fact is that he came for her and brought her along, so now he’ll have to answer some questions, wether it pleases him or not. She can't imagine just continuing living her life with no other sign of Ward, ever, so she'd rather confront him now than forgetting she ever saw him again. 

As she goes for the door, though, it opens and Ward steps through the doorway like he’s stepping into an interrogation room.

Which one of them is the suspect ?

He doesn’t look the part, in dark clothes that cover every inch of skin and fit his body just right.

She supposes she does. Look the part, that is.

She still hasn’t changed, too worried he would enter the room while she was in the shower and decide to let her swim in her confusion for the entire night, so her clothes are dirty. She took a sweatshirt out of the duffel bag, but feels too sweaty and unclean to put it on just yet (a shower sounds like heaven right now, and it shouldn’t be a surprise he’s keeping her from it).

She washed her hands and her face to regain a semblance of cleanness as well as composure, but it didn’t do anything for the flashes of four gunshots and the ripped stitches going through her mind.

So yeah, she supposes she might be in the vulnerable position here.

Especially when she has to look up to meet his eye and await for him to talk.

He’s looking straight at her for maybe the first time, all focus on her. Yet his face took on the closed off expression of a passer-by, of a stranger.

She likes this even less than not knowing what’s happening.

“You’re leaving by morning.”

“How ?”

“A Shield team will come get you at the park a block away at 9 am.”

“Ward,” she begins, choosing to ignore the bob of his Adam’s apple when he hears her call his name, “what’s going on ?”

“I told you already. Fitz convinced Coulson…”

“No,” Skye shakes her head, “not that. The people shooting at me, how…”

Ward lets out a little puff of air, then steps around her to walk to the window.

He seems to check outside for any worrying sign, but staring out the window places him on the side, in a position where he can surveil both her and the street, so she knows that’s just an excuse.

“Those were the government’s.”

“That makes no sense,” she replies, crossing her arms on her chest. “Even if the government wanted to bring me in, they wouldn’t know where to find me and even then…”

“You brought someone in your team, yes ?”

She frowns, liking neither his tone nor the implication behind the question.

“Multiple someones. I trust them.”

“You trusted me.”

That’s a low hit. And it lands.

“I didn’t know better then.”

Ward snorts, still intent on looking through the window and not at her, despite the jab he just sent her way.

“Barbara Morse, is it ?”

“Stop asking questions you know the answer to. What about Bobbie ?”

“Maybe you should call Coulson, ask him how they managed to find you in a secured safe house.”

“Stop trying to defect, Ward,” she hisses, fists clenched. “I know what you’re implying, and Bobbie wouldn’t do that, she…”

“She already did. To a previous agent, who was captured by Hydra, and then to you. You seem to have an habit of trusting the wrong people, at Shield.”

She grits her teeth, and she’s ready to bite back but if there is one thing she knows about Grant Ward, it’s that (despite everything) he is not a liar.

Not with her anyway.

Well, he wasn’t; she doesn’t know what became of that promise after she shot him.

But Skye is also very, very good at ignoring problems right in her face, so she pushes the Bobbie Problem to resolve later and steps a little closer to Ward.

“So they’re after me, but Shield sent you ? How does that…”

“Coulson has always had a tendency of breaking the rules when it comes to those he cares about, even if his circle is extremely limited. He knew he couldn’t go through usual channels, so I seemed to be his only option, I guess.”

Something in his voice makes her fidget on her feet, uncomfortable. There is harsh steel and reproach, but something deeper, graver underneath and she pushes that to later, too.

“How did he find you ?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Ward…"

“You’ll ask him tomorrow. Until then, lock the door and keep a knife close.”

And that seems to be the end of it, of all explanation, as he once again steps around her on his way out.

“Ward, we should talk, we…”

“There is no we, Skye,” he snaps when he passes her, sending her a withering look.

“Isn’t there ?”

“No, there isn’t.”

“Ward.”

He keeps on walking.

“Ward !”

She supposes she wouldn’t want to stay either, in his position, and yet she can’t stop the next words from escaping her mouth, full of rage and regret and provocation.

“Don’t turn your back on me !”

“Or what, you’re gonna shoot me ?” He replies instantly. “Been there, done that Skye. You missed your chance.”

And that’s when she gets it, and it tears at something inside, when the realization actually settles and she understands. She understands the why and the what and the how he is enraged, he is suspicious and wary but… But she can’t let this go like this. She has never been one to simply accept facts as they were, she is the one who defies them and tries and tries and tries.

So she’ll try, because for some goddamn reason she doesn’t understand she wants to fix this.

“I’m sorry,” she pleads. Skye wants him to scream, to cry, to be violent or desperate, or forgiving, but she wants him to feel something, anything to show her that he still _cares_. Even after everything.

Ward doesn’t turn, merely moves his head with his hand still on the doorknob.

“You don’t get to be sorry.”

Well. Maybe he doesn’t care, after all. Despair creeps up on her and before she can stop herself she screams.

“Look at me !”

His back straightens, his shoulders lock as he inhales deeply before turning around to face her in the dim-lighted room, not unlike someone about to fight a wild beast.

God, it’s so unfair that he’s so beautiful even under the shitty lamp of the beat-up motel, that his broken edges attract more than they repulse. It’s so unfair that despite her knowledge of all he’s done, despite the fact that he’s toxic, she still wants him to hold her close and forgive her. He’s killed so many people (so has she), he has betrayed the team and all their friends (so has she), he’s fucking Hydra (not anymore). And yet, yet there is gold in his irises, honeycomb weaved into a bloody crown that circles his pupil.

His features are so hard, so guarded as he looks at her, she wants to cry even more.

She doesn’t remember him like this. He was always closed off (of course he was, that was his job) but now… well, the distrust on his face and the accusations she can see forming on his lips are directed towards her and she never thought they would be, so she doesn’t quite know what to do.

“What ?” He snaps. “What do you want, Skye ? What haven’t you taken already ?”

And oh, he’s right, he’s right, she wants to crawl up in a ball and cry.

“I… You… You came back for me,” she settles on. “I just want…to know if…”

“You think I’m still in love with you ?” He asks, all disbelief, like he thinks she’s delusional (she might be, she might be). At her open mouth full of empty promises and the interrogation in her pupils, he scoffs.

“For God’s sake Skye, I’m not an idiot. Nor am I suicidal.”

“I don’t…”

“You shot me four times in the back. I think you were pretty clear.”

“Then why did you come ?” She asks -begs, she’s begging for an answer but doesn’t want to recognize it as such.

“FitzSimmons care about you.”

And, after a pause, almost under his breath:

“Because I don’t want you dead, even if you don’t seem to pay me the same courtesy.”

He lets his words linger in the silence that follows, as her knees shake and her heart lurches.

“Are we done ?”

She nods because her voice doesn’t seem to work and even if it did, she doesn’t know what she would say. She is ready to kneel and apologize because she needs his forgiveness, she needs it, but then he adds:

“I want you gone by morning.”

Her heart stops.

“Grant…” and she’s ready, she’s ready to confess all the things she kept hidden, all the things he tried to make her say for so long, but he turns his back to her and hisses:

“Don’t fucking start. Go back to Coulson, go back to killing people who don’t deserve it and calling me a Nazi; I don’t even care. I just want you gone by morning.”


	4. My sins need Holy Water, Feel it Washing over me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for all the nice comments and support, I don't always respond but it really means a lot, and it motivates me to write.  
> See the end for notes.  
> Hope you enjoy !

_"-I just want you gone by morning."_

She would’ve gone, she thinks.

Truly.

She would’ve, if unknown attackers hadn’t come barging in her room at 2 in the morning, making her leap to her feet, eyes and body still heavy with sleep.

She would’ve gone, but before she can even think, a needle is plunged into her neck and her veins turn cold. 

She cries out his name at the same moment her knife slits the guy’s throat and blood pours on her.

She lands a few very good blows against the ones dumb enough to try and put her down, kicking and stabbing and dodging on instinct and she’ll have them beat before Grant comes in here (if he does), but then…

Then she doesn’t control her movements anymore. Then she can feel her bones shake within her body, can feel her heart running like a drugged horse, and the blood in her head seems to land blows against her skull.

She falls to her knees (they’re shaking, she’s shaking, but for some reason the room is not and her powers don’t work), the world blurs and she’s choking on something thick and icy, something that keeps her from breathing right, something that makes her vision blur and fail.

Fear.

She’s choking on fear. She attempts to quake it out but the vibrations stay stuck in her throats and come out as whimpers she’s not even aware of.

The shadows are closing in on her and Skye heaves but no air comes into her lungs and she can’t move and her heart stumbles over itself. She can’t find it in herself to care about them surrounding her helpless form. She can’t find herself anyway.

Shots echo in the room and it’s Ward, she knows it’s him, but her head refuses to calm down and her muscles are all tense and trembling yet useless and she can’t think, she can’t even tilt her head towards him, even as bullets fly and each shot sounds like thunder rumbling in her bones.

She knows it’s a drug. The logical part of her brain screams at her heart to stop beating like she’ll have a fucking attack, screams at her lungs to inhale normally because everything is alright, it’s just a panic inducing drug that provokes symptoms of what feels dangerously close to epilepsy, even though that”s not it. But the major part of her brains and every cell of her body drive her mad with terror.

A purple hue dances on the edge of her vision, an she gestures widely, seeking his hand desperately to anchor herself.

“Ward, Ward,” she says, fear choking her up, a fog surrounding her.

Then he’s there, warm next to her, sitting her up and taking her frantic fingers in his. His scent burns her nostrils, her eyes water because it feels like she’s going to _die_ here.

“Hey, calm down, I’ve got you.”

His voice is a silver lining in a tempest, and she can’t help burying her face in his chest, attempting to block off everything but the terror doesn’t leave. His arms tighten around her whole body. Her fingers find the rough scars on his forearm.

“I’m sorry,” she cries, “I’m sorry.”

She’s scared, she’s guilty, and her brains seem so far away while Grant is here and solid and _real_. All her attention focuses on this, on the reality of his hold on her and the way his jacket feels between her fingers and under her tearstained cheek. She distantly feels his arm slipping under her legs, lifting her up.

“God, I’m so sorry, I…”

“I know you are,” he says quietly in her ear, the world abruptly narrowing down to them. “I know you are, Skye. It doesn’t change anything though, does it ?”

And she wishes she could tell him that of course it does, it changes everything, but too late apologies don’t take anything back, and they certainly don’t make things right.

“I’m sorry,” she still sobs, the words ripped out from her throat, full of a terror she doesn’t know how to contain.

She doesn’t know what else to say, what else he wants to hear. Maybe he doesn’t want to hear anything, but she can’t stop the words from breaking free and she’s so _scared_ …

Everything is a blur through her tears and she can’t focus on anything, she just knows she grips Grant’s arms tightly when he tries to let her go, and he has to make her let go of him with reassurances whispered in her ears.

Then, they’re moving but her mind isn’t, still fogged up, and she can’t think but later, when she’ll remember some of it, Skye will be surprised at the absolute trust she gives him in her most vulnerable state.

The next thing she knows, she wakes up in a fancy room with tear tracks on her cheeks and a regular heartbeat.

Beside the dampness on her face and the pain in her whole body, there is no remains of what happened. She doesn’t exactly remember what happened either - she’s grateful for that.

Sitting up, Skye takes in the furniture that drastically changes from the cheap motel.

The light pouring from the wide glass windows illuminates the modern yet simple room, decorated with a few works of art (a statue on the dresser, two contemporary paintings hanging on the walls) to complete the setting of a glass table, the few chairs, the grey carpet and the big bed she’s currently laying in (the sheets might be made of silk, they’re so soft).

She has never been in a hotel this fancy, that’s for certain.

What is she doing here anyway ?

“Ward ?”

Her voice is hoarse and she has to clear her throat a few times for it not to hurt.

As Ward doesn’t answer, she decides to get up and get out of the clothes she is currently in to take a shower (what the hell, this hotel is so comfy, she isn’t going to pass up the chance of a good shower).

After, she can seek Ward out and ask him everything she wants to ask. After, she can realize how close to capture she came.

But before that, she’s going to clean up and get the dirt, the sweat and the remains of fear _off_ her skin.

Her legs are shaky when she leans her weight on them, but she pushes on, walks to the bag left on the glass table and fishes out of it blue jeans, a toothbrush, a black set of underwear (she doesn’t dwell on the fact that Grant picked them out) and a purple shirt.

The suite is so huge she has to _look_ for the bathroom and opens the wrong door three times before finally finding the one and entering the room.

The first thing she notices is the godsend bathtub, and she has to bite back a smile because when was the last time she took a bath ? Everything at Shield is strictly necessary, used in only its utilitarian way, nothing more. No need for comfort anyway when you get home from a mission, all you need is a bed to crash on and a gun under the pillow.

She lets the water run while she strips, mist slowly filling the room, settling on the mirror. She’s grateful for that: she doesn’t have to look at her expression when it downs on her that shedding her clothes feels like shedding the identity she built for herself during the past year.

Pieces of it, at least.

She doesn’t think about that, simply enjoys the heat, the comfort it brings to her once she is naked and there is nothing to suffocate her anymore.

The water temperature is just right, peeling off the dirt as soon as her body is submerged in the bath.

After having poured the entirety of the fancy peony bubble bath, Skye puts her head underwater, counts to 30 and reemerges, keeping her eyes shut.

The fear seems far away.

Time passes without her noticing, her thoughts drowning, the relaxation in her muscles calling to a less complicated time, when Fitz and she used to take Ward’s clothes when he was in the shower and hide them so he would have to cross the entire aircraft almost entirely naked, when she would literally ambush him with his towel wrapped around his waist, when she enjoyed how he squirmed under her gaze and awkwardly tried to move past her.

It occurs to her just now that Ward literally saved her ass a second time, when she wasn’t able to think, let alone defending herself.

Fuck.

She really needs to make things right.

An hour or so after, when her feet and fingers are long wrinkled, the mist is gone and the bubbles have all been popped, she perceives the low humming of a discussion in the bedroom.

Quietly getting out of the bathtub, she grabs a towel and wraps herself in its soft cotton, before she carefully tiptoes to the door and presses her ear against it.

On the other side of it, Ward’s voice comes out smooth, a little far away, so she pulls her towel tighter around her chest, discreetly opens the door slightly ajar so she can hear. Maybe it’s dishonest (it is) but she can’t stop herself.He’s whispering in the phone, voice warm and open, and she should close the door and turn back, but she never gets to hear him talk like that anymore, so she indulges her desire and stays put.

“No, I’m fine, I swear,” he hushes. “I don’t know, a day or two, I guess.”

The person responds on the other side, and she can hear the tension leave his voice as he exhales.

“I know. But I’ll be home soon, ok ? He promised.”

The voice gets angry, louder in the phone and she hears Grant get up, start pacing furiously in a ruffle of clothes.

“It’s different this time. He’ll keep his word. Don’t… No, I’m not going to, don’t worry. And you have my back, anyway, right ?”

She doesn’t understand, and overall, this tone not meant for her hurts more than what she expected,so she closes the door without a sound and decides to hide in the bathroom until he finishes his call -it’s too much like the calls her foster parents would receive every now and then, announcing she would leave in the morning and go back to an orphanage-. She’ll probably borrow his phone afterwards and find a way to talk to Coulson, to the team, but she is taken aback by the fact that it doesn’t seem as urgent as it should.

Putting the new clothes on feels like separating herself from the spy, from the sniper, from the girl with a past too heavy to bear muffled in a corner of her mind to make room for the practical agent.

The shirt is soft, comfy like none of her clothes are anymore - too tight, tactical gear and crushing gloves- and the jeans feel oddly simple and thin on her skin, not made for field work or training.

She feels more like Skye than she has in a long, long time.

It feels kind of good.

Assess the situation before engaging, that’s one of the -many- things Ward taught her, and like most of them, she follows it by the book.

Ward has his back to her, hunched over the glass table to look at some papers she can’t discerne from the bathroom doorway but suspects they’re pictures, maps, plans.

Indeed, when she lets herself fall heavily on the chair farthest from him, she can see he collected all he could in less than….

“How long have I been under ?” She abruptly asks.

“Morning. 12 hours, something like that. I brought you some food,” he adds, pushing a brown paper bag towards her, and she realizes she is starving. “Thought you might be hungry after…”

“Being drugged ?”

“Yeah. That.”

“Thanks.”

He turns towards the files again. Inside the bag is a hot dog and French fries, and she feels far more grateful for the food than the other things she should be grateful for.

“Do you know who they were ?”

“Those guys ?” She pretends to ask, popping a fry in her mouth. He stares.

“Yeah.”

She avoids the subject for a minute or two, checking out the pictures he’s got laid out on the table, chewing way slower than usual, until his gaze gets demanding.

Only then does she sigh heavily, eyes down on her clutched hands.

“I don’t remember,” she whispers shamefully.

For once, he looks at her almost gently… Maybe her…. Apologies softened him up.

She straightens up. Puts herself together (she is an agent after all, and a good one at that). 

“They were using tactical gear. Governmental. I don’t know how they got our location, but that’s probably because this motel was goddamn shitty and the clerk couldn’t keep his mouth shut. I…”

She doesn’t know what to say to him. Thank you doesn’t seem to cover it, neither does sorry.

So she focuses on the most important thing at hand: the mission.

“What now ?”

“We need to lay low for a while," Ward tells her. "They won’t think about looking for us in such a nice hotel when we’re on the run, we just have to be extra careful. One room, no outgoings unless necessary, and minimal external contact …”

“You’re in contact with Shield ?”

Ward stiffens, but otherwise there is no sign of any emotion when he states:

“Not really. Coulson calls when he sees fit. He called a few hours ago, to make sure we were ok. Apparently he heard about the attack, wanted to be certain I hadn’t abducted you or ditched you somewhere.”

“Did he…”

“You were asleep,” he explains “and I thought you needed the rest. There was no need for both of us to describe what happened.”

“Yeah,” she answers, shoulders slumping. “I couldn’t have given much information anyway.”

“I sent photos of the men to my contact, she’ll see if there is any hit in governmental or private agencies.”

“Did you send the pictures to Shield ?”

“No.”

Skye nods.

“Ok.” She offers him the tray of French fries, waiting for him to eventually accept one. “You took them all out ?”

“The six that ambushed you in your room, minus the one you stabbed. The one in the corridor, plus the one surveilling the back exit.”

“Drivers ?”

“Didn’t see them. I took you to the car and drove. I don’t think they were expecting me,” he muses. “They must have thought you got out of the safe-house alone.”

Something strikes her, then, and she looks at him curiously.

“Do you know why they’re after me ?”

“No.”

It doesn’t seem to bother him, and she’s glad; she doesn’t exactly want him to look at her the way quite everyone looks at her now that she can split the ground.

“Shield doesn’t exactly freely give away information to enemies.”

“You’re not the enemy,” she mumbles, putting a strand of hair behind her ear.

“I’m certainly not a friend.”

“An ally ?” Skye inquires, looking up at him. “Do you think you could stand being my… an ally ?”

His stare roots her to the spot, eyes more curious than angry while he assesses both her and the proposition.

Eventually, when she knows she’ll have to breath soon instead of holding air in her lungs like apetulant child, he nods stiffly and says:

“I think I could. Not Shield’s. Maybe yours. For the time being.”

She suppresses a relieved sigh in favor of declaring:

“Those guys are after me. I want to find them.”

“Coulson will call with…”

“Not with Shield. With you. Now.”

His eyebrows jump in surprise. 

“Shield has far more resources, and…”

“And you said it yourself, I don’t know if I can trust everyone at Shield.”

“Yet you decide to trust me ?” He scoffs, but she sees it for what it is: astonishment, not contempt or mockery.

“I mean, you did just pull me out of possibly deadly situations when you didn't have to. Twice. One of which you literally had to carry me out.”

“Yeah, well it’s kind of my job, so…”

“I just…” she interrupts him, hand hovering in the air between a shush gesture and a reach towards his hand. “Thank you,” she settles on.

He nods in acknowledgment.

“So, let’s catch some bad guys, shall we ?” She says far too cheerfully. 

“Yeah. Let’s do that.”

He leans over the photos and whatnot once more, and she’ll help him in a minute, right after she eats another fry and stop marveling at the way his behavior is drastically different from yesterday.

The smile on her face is a hairbreadth from genuine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I'm really grateful for the comments you left on my work.  
> Secondly, I have a hard time writing a "detective/investigation/spy" plot, but that's what I'm aiming for in this story. So the next chapters will probably take longer to come as we get further into the plot.  
> Finally, I would really like to hear your thoughts about this chapter especially, as I'm trying to find a careful equilibrium between Skye's guilt, Ward's bitterness + his affection for Skye, the action itself, and the respect of both their characters.  
> So if it's all too simple or moving too fast, don't hesitate to tell me, it always helps me out. 
> 
> Thank you all so much,  
> See you soon.


	5. He's so devoid of colors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay. Again.   
> Lots of things to talk about down in the notes, if you're interested.   
> Hope you enjoy !

“It’s hopeless,” she groans, slapping a piece of paper face down on the table, _again._

“It’s not. We just don’t have the necessary means to begin an investigation this big.”

She glares at him. The frustration has been building up all the time they’ve been looking for a clue, and ending up empty-handed does _not_ do anything to help her annoyance at his calm and “super spy on a mission and unaffected by their new-found partnership” behavior.

“Excuse me for being chased by people who want to abduct me,” she hisses at him, because there is something like shame in her stomach and she’d rather be angry than guilty.

He recoils, crosses his arms on his chest and snaps back:

“Hey, I didn’t say it was your fault. All I’m saying is we can’t hope to find something if we can’t even access some basic database.”

“What do you suggest ?”

“We need more information on those people until K… my contact can send all she has found.”

“Well,” she starts, chewing on her lips a few seconds before continuing. “If I could have access to a computer…”

“You want to go buy a computer ?”

“It’s no use to do an investigation if we can’t even know who’s after me !”

“We can’t exactly go into an apple store !”

“It’s an hotel for rich people, right ?”

Ward glances at her with suspicion, eyes narrowed.

“Yes.”

“They’re kind of weird and entitled, right ?”

“Yes.”

“Then we can probably ask the hotel to buy one for us, for a generous tip.”

“I don’t think that’s cautious,” he objects. “The less people see us and the less we attract attention to ourselves, the better.”

“Or you can call your contact and see if they can drop a computer on our doorstep.”

He closes his eyes, sighs.

“I’m not dragging her further into this. Even if I wanted to, she’s in another country. But,” he begins when she opens her mouth, “she can probably order it online for us.”

“And that’s cautious how, exactly ? Anyone can trace a purchase like this.”

“If they know what to look for,” he replies. “And nobody knows she works with me. Plus, do you really believe someone would be able to trace a special agent’s credit card ? We know how to cover our tracks.”

“I could,” she grumbles.

“You didn’t.”

“Because I thought you were dead,” she snaps uneasily, not liking the reminder of his mistakes and her guilt. “Had I looked, I would have found you.”

“Not by credit card, I can assure you that.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“Ok, so that’s settled. We wait for the computer to arrive.”

“And we do what in the meantime ?”

“I don’t know, Skye,” he rolls his eyes. “I think we can figure it out.”

Great. Long silent period filled with awkwardness and a heavy past.

She loves it already.

Skye seldom has the time or the desire to study people, especially Grant Ward. Because if she starts analyzing Grant Ward and trying to, if not justify, understand the reason behind his actions and the way he thinks, she’s going to find echoes of herself in him, and she just can’t have that when she’s at Shield and he stands for everything she despises. But now, away from the team and the obligations being a field agent encompasses, glancing at his relaxed face out of the corner of her eye, she takes the time and the courage to admit to herself that yes, she understands him more than she would like.

“ _You’re gonna kick back and watch me bleed until it’s your turn to pull the trigger”_ she had accused him, once (a time when she had looked down on him and his mouth opened on her name and she chose to save him, a time before she consciously chose to shoot to kill).

Isn’t that exactly what she did in Puerto Rico ? She doesn’t like to think about Puerto Rico, but she isn’t the type to ignore things like that either.

Or maybe she is, but she has been ignoring that far too long, and now that she is faced with both what she has done and the possibility to make it right, to a certain extent, she will face it.

“It”. The fact that she was exactly on the same road as he was. If she stops lying to herself, she can see that she was right there, on the path with him, until Coulson said “you weren’t weak”.

And that’s it, isn’t it ? Those simple words, that’s the difference between her and Ward. Coulson or Garrett, that’s all.

She called him a murderer once, just because the people he executed weren’t Shield’s targets but Hydra’s- not even Hydra’s, Garrett’s. Just as Skye now executes people deemed enemies of Shield because they won’t give information, because they won’t be brought in and registered as potential danger.

Ward and Skye are just on opposite sides in a meaningless war that will leave no survivors.

She likes to think Coulson is a good father-figure while Garrett was a monster, but really, she’s smarter than that. She was in the Rising Tide, trying to unmask those government tools to the entire world. She infiltrated the team, got discovered, was given a badge alongside a new set of morals, and traded her computer for a 308 Winchester rifle. Then she found her dad, found her powers, her world got destroyed and everything just lost all meaning, because life is constantly shifting and she is always evolving, although it doesn’t feel like an evolution of any kind.

More like losing herself and having to rebuild her jagged edges once again.

She has shed her skin too many times to count, now, too many times to really know herself.

But today, she can say that she’s tired. That the darkness she saw in Grant, the one echoing her own that drew her to him, is gone.

He seems tired, too.

Skye sighs, pressing her fingers on the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes.

Hindsight. What a bitch.

She’s here, casually sitting on the bed, he’s here, and he’s goddamn reading a book in silence and maybe, just maybe, it’s worth it.

“Emily Dickinson ?” She taunts. “Didn’t figure you were the type.”

The look he sends her is fleeting, and he seems uneasy when he responds.

“Well, I’m still trying to figure out my literary tastes by myself, so...”

“What do you mean ?”

Grant sighs, dark eyes stilling on the page and shoulders stiffening in a defense mechanism.

“All the books I read since I was 15 were on a list prepared by Hydra re-education team. Not sure it’s anyone’s cup of tea.”

That’s when she gets it.

The complexity and the very essence of what made him the agent he was or still is.

His reasons and his story become awfully clear, all of a sudden.

He spent his life under a continued system of maltreatment and abuse.

His family, both parents and his brother. Garrett. Shield. Her.

Just an endless loop of abuse he had no chance of escaping.

“Grant ?”

He almost jumps, surprised by his given name in her mouth.

“Have you ever… had relationships, beside us, within Shield ? Or even Hydra ?”

“What ?”

His clipped tone is a warning and a defense, yet she chooses to push on.

“I just… I just realized that you never really talked about your time at the Academy, not like FitzSimmons did. I mean, I get why, because you were… undercover, but even after… I only ever heard you talk a small bit about your family, and Garrett, and I just… I wonder is all.”

“You really think we’re at that point in our relationship ?”

“Trade. I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

“What, trade of weeping stories ?”

“Just some information to know you better.”

“Know me better ? What the hell are you playing at, Skye ?”

“Nothing !” She defends herself, crossing her legs. “We have at least two days before us, and we can’t go outside. We’re not just gonna stand there with our mouths shut and wait for it to arrive.”

“So we have to play bonding ? I’ll pass.”

“Come on, Grant. It’s… It’s just talking, right ? A conversation. You don’t have to tell me things you don’t want to, I just… I just want to… To understand.”

That gets his attention.

“What do you want to know ?”

“What I said before. Have you ever bonded with people outside a mission, an assignment ?”

“That’s an oddly specific question.”

“I’ve had time to mull it over.”

“I only ever had targets, until the team came along. You, all of you, made me believe that... that I could have something akin to a family of my own, despite my loyalty to Garrett.”

“Then why didn’t you choose us ?”

She looks at him, still a little broken (because that’s what hurts more; not even the lies but the fact that he had the opportunity to choose them over Hydra, and he didn’t).

“Because Garrett was all I had ever had. He was the one who gave me a second chance, not Shield. And I see now, that it wasn’t exactly that, but it was for me. Sometimes it still is. I owed him much more than I cared about you.”

“He broke you.”

“He didn’t. There was nothing to break. He built me. I know you want to see it otherwise, but it’s the truth. Like he wanted, but he still built me. That’s why it’s not... it’s impossible to shake off the loyalty.”

“And towards us ?”

“It’s... it’s complicated, Skye, it’s not... not two sides for me, it’s far more complex. You can’t understand, it’s…”

“Then explain it to me.”

“No.”

“Grant…”

“We said trade, didn’t we ?”

She swallows back her frustration, crooks an eyebrow at him.

“What do you wanna know ?”

He straightens up, closing his book and focusing solely on her face. It’s intimidating, to say the least.

“Why did you join the Rising Tide ?”

“That’s not complicated. I was looking for a purpose, and turns out I hate the government. Played out well for everyone involved.”

“Except the government,” he snorts.

“Well, they had it coming when they accepted Cheetos’ head. Come on, ask something else.”

He seems to think about it for a second, still staring right at her.

“Why are you still at Shield now that you know what happened to your parents ?”

That’s a much more complex question, one she has to think long about to answer at least a bit honestly.

“They’re my family. And now, since Puerto Rico I’m…” she glances to the side. “I’m different.”

“So what ? You stay there because you think no one else will accept you ?”

“No !” She exclaims, “No. They’re my family, and I owe them a whole lot, and even if I didn’t, we’ve been through too much for me to let them down now. I don’t want to leave Shield. It’s my home.”

Hesitating, he looks away, hands clenching before he turns his eyes on her again. He opens his mouth twice before he manages to say what he wants to say.

“You know, for my entire life, I had no place in the world but at Garrett’s side. That was what I was born for, made for. Without this, without the mission to keep him alive, I…”

“I get it. I searched for a purpose since the day I was born. I get it.”

“No, Skye, what I mean is… You’re probably in the same set of mind.”

“No I’m not.”

“You sure about that ?” He says, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, this is nothing like you and Garrett,” she objects, uneasy yet unwavering in her certainty. “I’m staying at Shield because I want to, because…”

“I wanted to stay with Garrett as well. I did everything I did because I needed to, but it was always my choice, never someone else’s. You need to be careful with yourself, is what I mean.”

“I know myself.”

“Ok.”

She looks away from him, unfolds her legs and goes picking up an apple from the tray on the table, just so she doesn’t have to stare at him or keep the conversation going.

She takes a bite of the apple, turns around.

He’s still on the chair, eyes on the window this time.

She gulps.

“That wasn’t very hard either,” she says, falsely cheerful, and draws his attention on her again, “and it wasn’t sad. I promised a sad story for your sad story.”

“Ok. Well, you asked me about the people, so… I don’t know, have you… Why did you leave your parents when you finally found them ?”

That’s a blow to the stomach, quick and harsh. She exhales slowly to try and compensate the wild beat of her heart, takes another bite.

“You said to ask,” he defends himself when he sees her state.

“I know, I know. Just… It’s still…”

“Hard.”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “Well my… my mother uh… used me to destroy Shield. She tried to manipulate Inhumans to start a war, and… And she tried to kill me, so. Yeah. My father killed her.”

She feels like she can’t breathe, but she keeps on going because it’s the first time she’s told anyone, the first time she actually goes over the events and dares shape it with words.

It feels like pulling on her twisted guts. Maybe the knot there will finally untie.

“And my father, he… Well, you saw it first hand, he wasn’t… fit for life like we live it, and I didn’t want… I didn’t want him to live the rest of his existence knowing he had a daughter he could never see and his wife, the woman he loved and tried to avenge for decades, had died by his hand. I wanted something kinder for him. I still do. So I… We erased his memories. I still… I went to see him a few times. He never recognizes me, which… I should be glad about, I guess.”

The silence is deafening, and she doesn’t want to fill it, so she takes another bite of apple and tries to swallow past the lump in her throat.

“My mom tried to kill me too, so mine is still sadder.”

She snaps her gaze up to him, and there is something in his eyes, something akin to mirth, and then she’s laughing because they’re both so fucking sad assholes, it’s too tragic not to be funny.

They order food up in the room, because they don’t want to go down to the restaurant and attract any unnecessary attention. Besides, eating sushis in front of the Tv beats having to dress up and mingle with rich guys being assholes to the staff.

Grant is on the couch, and Skye is sitting on the carpet stuffing her face, legs tucked under the coffee table.

There is no talk about the bed, because this is a suite and the couch is almost as comfortable as the mattress in the room. She already took pillows and settled her stuff on the sofa, so there is no mistaking her. He pulled his stitches the day before -or the one before, she is losing track of time- and he can’t take the risk to pull them once more.

The day flied by without a hitch, and there, on the carpet, looking up at the large screen, she catches herself thinking that this was a good day. Still a little cold, still a little - a lot- uncomfortable, but far better than she would’ve thought, considering the case is a stalemate for now.

And maybe, she thinks, just maybe, these three days will pass smoothly.

Or not.

Waking up the morning after is hard, sleep pulling at her eye sockets and limbs, and an unpleasantlump in the pit of her stomach. She wants to go home. She wants to get rid of the people on her heels. She wants her family.

Grant himself is pissed off, that much is clear. He’s snappy, and she’s snappy right back because hours spent indoors with someone you wouldn’t call a friend, it’s fucking complicated.

It’s unnerving, and they reach a silent agreement of staying out of each other’s way.

It doesn’t go well for her.

She’s not the type of person to await things, she is not the one put on lookout during a mission, and right now it feels like sitting on the bench during the game (except the game might kill her and her teammate kind of hates her).

The second day stretches and stretches in time, but after pacing, reading, and gazing out of the window, it eventually ends, and she’s glad.

On the third day’s morning, Skye is, simply put, on edge.

She has been having nightmares since they drugged her, and this night was restless, and she woke up with cold tears on her cheeks.

Feeling sick to the stomach as well as lonely, she looks for Grant after having brushed her teeth and dressed. He’s in the kitchen, open to the main bedroom and next to the front door.

He’s not moving. His back is taut as a bowstring like he expects a blow at any given moment, and she’s tired and annoyed so she walks to him without knowing why.

She bumps into a stool, spitting a stray of curses.

Grant twirls around, and when he sees her marching towards him, he flinches. Honest to God flinches.

Skye is so surprised, so confused, she stops dead in her tracks. Because Grant Ward does not, under any circumstances, get scared, and certainly not of her.

Except he apparently does now.

Maybe that has to do with the bullets he had to dig out of his own skin.

She shouldn’t have sneaked up on him, especially not from behind.

“You ok ?”

“Hi.”

It’s suspicious, still wary, like he excepts her to jump on him at every second. A numb feeling spreads to her ribcage, her fingers.

She’s so done with overthinking her every move, her every word. She wants to go back to smiling at him and telling him her every thought, no matter how dumb.

She wants to go back to hating him and making it clear with words full of venom and hatred; lies she told him as much as she told herself - _you should’ve run faster_ \- but she can’t. Skye can’t go back to either.

And yet, she is done with feeling like she’s hanging above the empty, waiting for the fall. She’s done with him thinking she’ll hurt him if he lets her get too close (she probably will, but he doesn’t know that, none of them know that) and she wants him to see that she can… That she can be more than the girl who shot him, even though she had reasons, than she can do more than bring pain and destruction in her wake like she did in Puerto Rico.

Skye joins his side in three large steps; his eyes snap down to her face, mouth ready to tell her off. She doesn’t give him the chance.

Grabbing a fistful of his shirt, she ignores the pounding of her heart and the dread in her stomach and pulls him down to kiss him.

He makes a noise in the back of his throat, and yeah, that’s what she wanted, so she pulls him closer and presses her lips harder against his.

Then his hands grasp both her wrists and push her away.

He tears her from him violently, but doesn’t budge afterwards, eyes wide and dark with something she is scared to call repulsion.

She’s going to cry, she can already feel it.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing ?” He snaps tightly through his teeth, eyes accusatory and hold on her wrists too tight.

His grip is unyielding, but all she wants to do is beg for forgiveness, fall on her knees before him and cry.

“I…I…” she stumbles over her words, batting her eyelashes to blink the tears away. “I’m sorry, it was a mistake, I thought…”

“What the fuck Skye !” He shouts, furious. “You think what, that kissing me will get you what you want ? Manipulate me like that again ? I’m not him anymore. I’m not your lapdog.”

“I know,” she pleads, straining against his grip, because the way he’s holding her is making it impossible for her to leave and impossible for her to put some distance between them and she has to look up at him even as he’s screaming and the tears won’t stop.

She needs to get away from his accusations and his eyes and his body marked with too many scars in order to stop feeling like absolute shit right now.

“I know,” she repeats, throat closed up, “I know, I’m sorry, just…”

“You think you have any right to do that ?”

“I don’t know, I thought… Just…”

“You don’t get to… I’m done with following your round, I’m done with giving you whatever you want, I am DONE, you hear me ? You come in here and act like nothing has changed, like you can do whatever you want to me, like you can kiss me and I’ll just accept whatever you give, and I won’t, I can’t anymore, I…”

She falls down to her knees, sobbing, before he can finish his sentence. Her throat is so tight she can’t breathe right and her heart constricts painfully in her chest while he’s still standing there, above her, holding her wrists like he’s her executioner and priest all at once (and she wishes to confess, God, she’ll confess anything if only he could look at her with something else than repulsion and fear and anger).

“I’m sorry,” she hiccups. “I’m sorry, ok ? I’m sorry.”

It seems to be the only thing she can say to him now, and she doesn’t really know what she’s apologizing for each time, because he has his own share of apologies he should be making and she doesn’t see him sobbing on the floor and crushed under the weight of his past actions.

Maybe he’s just better at concealing all of it.

In any case, between the two of them, there is a lot to seek forgiveness for.

Ward seems hesitant, a little lost suddenly, but she isn’t really sure, because the only thing she can actually focus on is her labored breathing and the painful burn of his skin on hers.

She tries to forget the numbness of her lips.

He crouches down in front of her, slowly, knees cracking as he descends.

“Hey,” he says right in front of her, head bent down to look her in the eye, “What’s going on ?”

She cries harder, because she would rather he left than he be gentle. Soft voice, cautious gaze, and why does he fucking care suddenly ? She struggles against him because she hasn’t tried that yet, and unsurprisingly it’s no use. But she keeps on struggling because she doesn’t know when to quit and there are sounds coming out of her mouth but even she cannot understand them.

She moves her hands enough so she can grip his wrists as well, anchor herself and she doesn’t know anymore, if she wants him closer or in another country (but it feels like she’ll die if he walks out now).

“Skye. Skye, what is it ?”

“I’m sorry, ok ? I’m sorry,” she manages to say. “I screwed up. So bad. I didn’t…” she hiccups again, tries to inhale. “I didn’t mean to, I didn’t…”

“Ok. Ok. I get it, just calm down, alright ?”

“You did things too,” she accuses, but it’s a little desperate, scrambling for everything that isn’t her guilt. “You did things, Grant, you… You used me, you used all of us and then… Then you just dropped Fitz and Simmons and I…”

“It was supposed to float, Skye; I told you it was supposed to float.”

She’s still crying but for some reason she can breathe now, and her lungs expand even more when he gives her a contrite twitch of his lips and adds:

“And you should stop apologizing. It’s no use.”

A few silent minutes later, he tugs her up and although her knees buckle, she stands.

“Will you ever forgive me ?” She asks quietly, tears icy on her lips.

She doesn’t look at him.

“Did you forgive me ?”

She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know.

“I think so. For some of it.”

He nods, like this is the answer he expected, and then he just turns around and opens the door. 

“Go freshen up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I’ve been looking up some stuff and analysis on PTSD and abuse, and let me tell you it only enraged me more against Aos writers. The amount of Victim blaming on this show is baffling, especially when the actions of the “good characters” echo perfectly the “bad characters’” but suddenly it’s a hero’s behavior because it’s Shield. I’m so pissed off right now.   
> Thus, the story took a different turn; I’m trying not to focus that much on the Angst, and the shift in Skye’s feelings towards Ward might be a little quick, but I am utterly incapable of trying to justify what they did to Ward’s character, so I’ll just skip that uncertainty on Skye’s part and have them talk so she can realize some stuff quite early. Plus, I completely rejected the one-dimensional villain they made Ward out to be in season 3, so don’t be surprised if I dwell a bit on the abuse he suffered. I think I'll stray from my original idea and I'll have Skye do some research on the brainwashing techniques used on Ward, so I can stop seethe alone about the abuse and actually write about it.   
> Not sure when I'll post next time, between the exams coming up and everything...   
> Thank you so much for reading, I really hope you enjoyed, reviews always make my day if you can !


	6. He's dripping like a saturated sunrise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the delay, I had so much difficulty writing this chapter, it was so annoying.  
> The updates are probably gonna get worse from here on out, as I'm I the middle of the week before my final exams....  
> Anyway, I really hope you enjoy !  
> Don't forget to leave kudos and comments, good or bad, they make my day !

The water splashed on her face doesn’t do anything to mask her shame.

Following an impulsion has never backfired so hard before (maybe it should have), and the sense of utter loss she feels clearly reflects on her face through the pull of her brow and her slacked jaw.

Needless to say, she feels like garbage about the whole thing.

She doesn’t want to do this again, doesn’t want to use him like that ever again.

Crying still appears like a possible outcome, because it’s all she seems to do these days, and… And it’s freeing. God, she hasn’t cried in so long, she hasn’t let herself fall apart in so long. It’s so weird that it’s in front of Grant Ward, but is though ? Isn’t he the one that hurt her the most, and hasn’t she returned the favor just as hard ?

She has never lost control over herself like she has with him, three times now -a punch to his face and spiteful words in the wake of his betrayal, four bullets fired without a second thought, and her shattering in front of him under the weight of guilt and something more that she cannot put her finger on.

Skye shakes her head, takes a deep breath.

She needs to get her shit together. For the few days they’ve been here, she has been adjusting to him, reminding herself of all that has gone sideways, all the ways he screwed her over and all the ways she could’ve led him to be better. But that wasn’t her job then, and it isn’t her job now.

Grant seems to have worked, if not past it, around it.

  
She needs to do the same. Remorse and regrets are a luxury she cannot afford right now, not with people chasing after her and the team worlds away.

Exhaling shakily, she dries her face with a towel and nods to herself.

It’s enough of that.

If he can be professional, she can be as well. She isn’t gonna get close to him, she isn’t gonna fucking assault him again, she’ll just keep a rational distance and… And they’ll work together and maybe this can work, after all.

She nods to herself again, staring at her reflection.

Yeah. This can work.

Grant is gracious enough not to bring it up when she comes back into the room with red cheeks, but he is sitting with an intense, almost stressed look on his face that sends a wave of panic through her.

“Do you… Can we talk ?” He asks.

Taken aback, she lets herself fall into the armchair, staring.

Waiting.

“I…” he passes a hand on his stubble, eyes on the floor, frowning in concentration to find the right words. He’s never been a man of many words, she supposes.

Skye is kind of terrified.

“I’m done apologizing for what happened,” he states slowly, admission falling from his mouth in a heavy manner that tells her to hang on his every word, “for what I did, because if I keep trying to gain forgiveness, I’ll go mad. But it doesn’t mean… It doesn’t mean I’m not still sorry. And just because I… changed, I realized the errors of my ways, doesn’t mean I won’t attempt to make things right again. And if I try, I want you to know that it’s mainly because of you. Because you’re the first one, the only one, that has ever apologized to me for what happened. Kara…”

He interrupts himself, frowning again. She guesses this is one person that sticked with him after he got shot, or maybe he did that on his own and found her afterwards. His voice gets a little thicker when he speaks again. 

“Kara helped me a lot, made me see the things I couldn’t see by myself, but she didn’t know the team, and she isn’t on the other side of the fence. So hearing you saying sorry, and trying to make things better, it… It makes me believe I can still try, too.”

The words take a while to register, and when they do, it takes another second to find what to answer. Ward keeps staring at the floor.

“Ok,” she smiles. It feels weird on her cheeks after crying so much, it feels weird to smile at him with something like ease lurking around.

“Ok.”

“And, for the record, I know we both made some pretty huge mistakes. I just want to say that… with no regard for what you did, my biggest was probably refusing to help you. You hurt me and I was too close to it, and I had been fooled once, and… It was just easier to ignore the fact that you were more than just an enemy, otherwise I would’ve… Well, it doesn’t matter now.”

“I get it. It was easier at first to see you as a simple mission.”

Ward swallows and she recognizes it as a sign of his trying to gather his thoughts and decide if he should whatever he’s thinking about out loud or not. Her patience pays off.

“The truth is, when it comes to you guys, to the team, all I’ve ever known is regret. And once you taste regret, you can’t really get rid of it. Not alone, at least.”

“Were you ? Alone ? After, I mean.”

After the bullets. After they each went their own way.

“No.”

“Good. I’ m… I’m so tired of us hurting each other despite our best intentions.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“So. Tabula rasa of sort ?”

“I don’t know if we can, Skye,” he sighs.

It pains him, she can see it, but she doesn’t know what to offer in order for them to be ok.

“Do you still see me as… As Hydra ?”

“No,” comes her immediate response. “Not Hydra.”

“But you still see me as the bad guy.”

She doesn’t answer.

“I don’t think I can repair a relationship with someone that still thinks of me as a monster.”

“I don’t know how to change that,” she whispers, because she may be grateful to him, she may wanna fix it, his betrayal is still there and she doesn’t think he’ll get rid of that label in such a short lapse of time.

She can’t help it; that’s what her brain and her body associate him with.

“Can I ask you something ?”

Curious, Skye nods. Ward’s eyes are incredibly dark when they meet hers, his whole black attire in perfect contrast with the light pouring through the windows.

God it’s only been a few days.

“Why am I the bad guy ? And I’m not trying to justify myself,” he furthers, “I’m asking honestly.”

It feels oddly like guessing, like a game, except that if she gets a wrong guess all the progress they made will be worth scratch.

“Because you betrayed us. Because you infiltrated the team and manipulated us into trusting you just to turn your back on us for Hydra.”

“Morse betrayed her own team in Hydra, didn’t she ? So did Simmons. How is that different ?”

“She was under cover, she wasn’t...”

“I was undercover. For ten years, I was undercover.”

“That’s worse, Grant,” she whispers, lungs shrinking a bit, unbelievably sad all of a sudden.

“Yeah. Probably. And I hate Hydra, I’d never even try to justify anything they do. But what I want to show you is that the only reason you see me as a villain is because I’m not on your side.”

“That’s not... you killed people.”

“I killed plenty of people for Shield.”

“It’s different, it’s... I don’t know, Grant. It just is.”

He accepts her sorry excuse of an answer, nodding a little dejectedly.

“But I… I want a start over. I mean it.”

“Skye,” he sighs heavily, more drained than anything else. “What are you trying to do here ?”

“Making amends, I guess.”

Grant watches her.

Really watches her, without saying a word or softening the impact of his gaze whatsoever.

Despite her resolution, she can’t help the little glance sent at his lips before she catches herself and draws it back to her hands.

It’s hard, not to look at him this way, when she distinctly remembers the fierceness of his lips and the way his hand gripped her hair, when she knows the sounds he makes with her tongue in his mouth.

But he has been used and abused by all the people in his life ; she certainly doesn’t want to be added to the list. He always felt trapped, wherever he was, and she refuses be one more nail in his coffin.

Knocks on the door burst the weird mood like a bubble, and suddenly he’s on his feet and moving, gone from her line of sight.

She stays on the bed. It feels oddly empty.

After a few seconds of faint conversation, he comes back with a huge white package under his arm.

“Yes !” She exclaims, jumping to her feet like a kid on Christmas and snatching the computer from him.

Skye tears the packaging open and then finally, a goddamn computer which she can _use_ to figure things out, instead of sitting idly in a weird-ass situation and waiting for things to happen.

She grabs the charger, plugs it in, fishes the guns Ward took from their assailants out of the bag, and settles down on a chair. The black portable computer is a Lenovo, and she has to take her hat off to his contact not only for acquiring such a high-level quality computer, but also for buying one perfectly suited for both desk work and field work. The main softwares she needs are already included in the Lenovo laptop, so she simply has to do her thing.

In a few minutes, she has four tabs open and is already searching (hacking, but those days are behind her so she won’t say the word out loud) the origins of the weapons, running their serial numbers through a few databases.

Awaiting the result, Skye looks up and asks :

“Do you know if your contact figured out anything about the guys who attacked us ?”

He shakes his head and sits opposite from her at the table, back straight, seemingly ready for an imminent invasion.

“Well, they’re really efficient, I’ll give them that. A Lenovo on such short notice ?”

“She’sresourceful.”

She recognizes his answer for what it is: him voluntarily lifting a little corner of his life since Puerto Rico. Not too much, just enough.

  
Skye almost says “I’d like to meet her,” because any kickass woman who’s helping her and can get her hands on a secure Lenovo for someone she’s never met is definitely on her list of favorite people, but the words won’t leave her mouth.

No need to risk the truce just attained for curiosity’s sake.

The computer runs and runs until it’s almost too hot to touch, but nothing that interesting comes out of it. Ward comes and goes to print some files, some photos, and probably check in with his contact.

There is nothing to draw from the pictures for now, which is frustrating to no end for Skye.

The day passes by without so much as a discovery, and she takes it quite personally, considering she’s supposed to be the best at what she does. If it’s in a server somewhere, she can find it.

The problem is, she doesn’t even have the slightest idea of which server she’s supposed to search through.

She would have pulled a one-nighter if things had been up to her, but they’re not, and Grant insists she have some sleep even as the clock only strikes 9 p.m.

She would’ve thrown a tantrum as well, had they been any closer, but as it is she just nods and complies, laying on her side on the bed.

“You’re not gonna sleep ?” She asks when it’s clear he’s not planning on laying down.

Ward shakes his head, settling in the chair she just left vacant with a gun at hand reach.

“I’ll take the first watch, keep eyes on the search. You’ll be much more efficient than me when you wake up. I’ll sleep then.”

“Ok.”

After her eyes shut, it takes a while to try and dismiss his presence, but once she manages it, she drops asleep.

Waking up to Ward’s warm hand on her shoulder and his voice calling out her name softly is not as off-putting as it should be. One would think she acquired better instincts with months of field work but apparently not.

She opens her eyes and _wow_ , he’s close (and he smells good, she faintly notices, not blood or sweat but still his scent in all the ways that should count).

“Skye, someone’s on the phone for you.”

He offers her the device, and she has to sit up and rub her eyes before holding it properly to her ear.

“Hello ?”

“Skye, thank God.”

“Coulson !” She exclaims, very much awake all of a sudden.

God, it’s so good to hear his voice. Skye hasn’t realized how much she misses him (he always had the incredible ability to make her think things were looking up, that everything was gonna be ok and she desperately needs that right now).

“Are you alright ?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine ! What about you, the team ? Are you all ok ?”

“Don’t worry, we’re all fine. I’m sorry I couldn’t reach you sooner, we…” A pause. “We hit some internal trouble.”

“Trouble ? What kind of trouble ?”

“It doesn’t matter now. Are you safe ?”

“Yeah,” she answers, admitting defeat for now. “We’ve been laying low for three days but no one came knocking, so I guess it means we’re out of the woods.”

“Good, that’s good. I have some things to handle here before you can come home.”

“What things ?”

“Don’t worry.”

“AC…”

“I’m handling it, Skye. You’ll be fine, as long as Ward keeps his promise.”

At those words, she remembers the specialist is still in the room with her, and she glances at him.

He’s focusing a little _too_ hard on the printed files.

“I wouldn’t worry about that.”

“Don’t be a fool, Skye, alright ? He’s manipulated all of us before, he can do it again.”

She feels guilty, all of a sudden. Here is Coulson, worrying bout her while handling everything going on with Shield, and she just kissed Ward (without his consent, might she add) for Christ’s sake.

What kind of agent is she ? What kind of person is she ?

“Ok,” she whispers, because she won’t get into it now, and she certainly won’t show either men she’s a little torn.

“I’m glad you’re safe. Can you pass me back to Ward ?”

She nods before remembering he can’t see her, and hands Grant the phone.

His jaw clenches when he brings it to his ear.

“I know that,” he grits out after Coulson says something. “Yeah, let me know.”

The way he hangs up tells her not to try and begin a conversation, so she gets up and slouches into the chair before the computer.

“Grant,” she calls out and it’s something unfamiliar rolling off her tongue, something intimate she wouldn’t mind getting used to.

She doesn’t really want to go back to a “Ward” basis.

“Look at this.”

He comes up at her elbow, but not too close, just enough to study the picture on the screen.

“The gear you took from them, it’s…”

“Military.”

“Yeah, but it’s part of a cargo that’s been stolen two years ago. All of it. All the serial numbers match with the stolen armory.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. If it’s been stolen, then they’re definitely not governmental, and they would have erased the serial number to avoid getting the weapons tracked down.”

“Unless no one would look for them,” she points out, holding the gun he took from the assailant next to the picture of a typical Baby WE Hi-Capa airsoft pistol. “Look at this.”

He squints at both, and Skye is almost amused to see the gears turn in his head.

“What am I supposed to see ?”

“They’re the same.”

Realization downs upon him and he takes the gun from her, turning it around in his hand to compare the serial number.

“They modify them.”

“They took the government’s weapons and changed them into I.C.E.Rs, some anti-gravitational stuff and electrical gear, and that’s just from what we found on them. No one looking for a handgun would stop at an I.C.E.R. or magnetic guns. They even take some parts and change them into basic gear. Look.”

She fishes the cuffs he took out of the bag. Their shape is odd, rounder and thicker than usual cuffs, and they’re certainly not made of metal. She carefully studies them, turning them over in her hands until a triumphal shout escapes her:

“Ahah !”

He looks at the place where her finger points; at a registered machine gun serial number.

“That would require… Fuck,” he mutters, “that would require a lot of manpower. A professional, equipped lab, means equivalent to Hydra or Shield.”

“Does Hydra have a history of stealing weapons from the government ?”

“Of course, but they never exactly wasted time modifying them, they just got rid of the serial numbers and called it a day.”

“Maybe they changed their ways.”

Ward snorts, eyes fidgeting on every picture displayed on the computer, placing some side by side.

“Doubtful. We’re talking about an agency that tried to take over the world for almost a century, and hasn’t once thought to change their logo so it would match their stupid name.”

Her eyebrows rise up to her hairline.

He catches her look and shrugs uneasily.

“They stick to the script is what I mean. But those cuffs… They’re really strange.”

“Well we don’t have the time or means to figure out what they’re meant for, so…”

“I need one of your hair.”

Startled, Skye stares at his expectant expression.

“What ?”

“You were drugged. We need to figure out where the drug came from, what type it was, if Shield has the means to get their hands on it or if it comes from a specific lab, we…”

“Have you ever seen that type of drug anywhere ?”

“No. I saw some akin to it, mixtures of adrenaline, dopamine and yohimbine but never to this extent and certainly not in the hands of field agents. When I dealt with it, scientists were the ones to handle the drug, and sometimes high-ranked officers. It was used in some interrogations, but it wasn’t common practice.”

“But it did something to me, it…”

Skye shakes her head, remembering the feeling of her bones shaking, of her power being repressed within her own body, bouncing off her ribs and organs and how it felt like it was suffocating her before it just… vanished. Slipped away from her, leaving her terrified and empty.

She doesn’t say any of that to him, but she lets it run through her veins now, to her fingertips, just indulging in the need to feel this part of herself and be assured that no, it’s not gone.

Her fingers tingle, and she lets the soft tremors die down.

Grant abruptly takes his phone, types some stuff, and inquires:

“What’s your email ?”

The banality of the question is so out of place she almost laughs, but that wouldn’t be professional, so she gives it to him and logs in on the computer.

He sends her the pictures he took of the dead guys and next to the photos are a few notes he probably added, such as “gang tattoo=probably in records” or “field scars= military, private sector”. 

Despite a little voice in her head that insists it’s inappropriate, she’s amazed at the perfunctory way he took them (a bullet to the head each, no blood; Grant Ward is anything but sloppy) and at the fact that he had the presence of mind to take pictures of their faces and tried to decipher some details.

She is still a long way from being this accustomed to field work.

She doesn’t know if she wants to get there.

“I’m gonna kill someone,” she hisses out.

She hears him stifle something that might be a chuckle or might be a curse, as he was asleep last she turned her head towards him (she did not let her gaze linger after making sur he was breathing).

“There is nothing in the goddamn database, I can’t…Oh my God, I’m just gonna leave this otherwise I’ll throw the whole computer out,” she snaps, surging to her feet.

It’s not like there’s anywhere to go, so she just walks around the room two times before Grant gets up, knees cracking under the effort, and she would’ve laughed if she weren’t so pissed.

“Nothing ?”

“Well besides some birth certificates, and blank documents, I’ve got nothing in the FLETC database, and…”

“The FLETC is in charge of sending well-trained students to all Federal Agencies, but the percentage of trainees sent to Shield from this agency in particular is extremely low.”

“Well, there is a whole Academy dedicated to training Shield agents in particular, so that makes sense but…”

“Exactly.”

“Exactly what ?”

“Shield agents don’t go through the same system as other agencies, they’re not in the same database, and they’re basically ghosts as they’re _recruited_ , not picked out from a pile of official candidates. How do you think no one found out about my past when I joined ? Shield just erases everything that puts a stain on a file.”

“What’s your point ? Those guys don’t exist in the system, is that what you mean ?”

“I’m saying that this is typical Shield behavior.”

“Coulson would never…”

“Coulson is not the only ancient agent of Shield left, far from it. Any high-ranked officer could have brought a team together, or done exactly what Coulson did: rebuild Shield their own way.”

“That’s not what Coulson did,” she interjects, but Grant doesn’t pay any attention to it.

“Could you hack a federal agency ?”

“Of course I can,” she scoffs. “But it’s not Shield. They would never go after Inhumans, they would never…”

“Look, Skye. You want to save your ass and figure out who is after you, you have to start an impartial investigation. Don’t get tangled in preconceived ideas or feelings.”

“I’m basing my judgement on far more than that, alright ? I’m an insider, I know…”

“That’s what I’m saying !” He remarks with a tilt of his head to the side. “Don’t build a judgement. Build a case.”

Skye gets where he’s coming from, but the thing is they have two different points of view on the world. She might have thought, a while ago, that their childhood being so similarly screwed up gave them something to share -and in a way, they did- but a worldview is not one of them.

While she chooses to rule her actions based on instincts and feelings, Grant Ward will never base a decision on his emotions or anything other that facts and cold logic.Skye cannot do that.

She’s grateful for this inability.

“I have faith in Coulson, in Shield, ok ?”

“Faith doesn’t stop bullets, Skye. It blindsides you. I learned that the hard way.”

“With Garrett ?”

A fleeting glance is sent her way before he’s looking at the file in his hand again.

“Yeah.”

There is nothing more to say on the subject, so Grant furthers/

“Some fail because of a stain in their file, but even Secret agencies like Shield cannot erase a federal agency file.”

“Yeah, what a secret Shield is,” she mutters, tapping on the computer.

“So we’re looking for ancient delinquents, people with criminal files in priority. Especially the ones that went to juvenile prison.”

“Juvenile ?” She wonders out loud, trying to filter the research in the database.

“Yeah, that’s the perfect way to enroll an individual without anyone noticing. That’s how Garrett picked me out.”

That’s… new information. New, not especially welcomed information.

“OK, so I’ll search that for now,” she agrees, fingers already flying on the keyboard to try and access the remaining records corresponding to the few birth certificates she managed to find, starting with the ones harboring gang tattoos.

“Ok, what about the drug ?”

Grant exhales slowly, taking the time to examine the options and set them out to her in a clear way.

“So we can break into a high-security lab, which requires careful planning and you staying with me for far longer than intended, and even then we’re not scientists. We’d either need someone else coming with us or force a specialist, and there might not be any PRA, to examine your hair on the spot with no guarantee of results or any kind of compliance.”

“You know how to get people to comply,” she chimes in, and it is far more a taunt than an accusation.

The way he bites his cheek tells her he’s trying not to smile, and she scores that as a win.

“Or you can ask your team for help. FitzSimmons are the most brilliant scientists you’ll find, especially when we’re looking for something so specific. You should go back to Shield as soon as you can.”

“Coulson said they hit some internal troubles. I might have to lay low for a little more time.”

“But Skye, once you’re back, you’ll need to do some research.”

“I know that, Ward.”

“On Shield.”

“I know that,” she repeats. Her right leg starts to jump up an down.

“You can go to Coulson, ask him for files, or any…”

“I don’t think he’ll take my investigating his agency keenly” Skye retorts, dry as sand.

She’s already freaking out at the simple idea of disappointing Coulson _again_. 

“What are you talking about ? You’re like his daughter, he’ll trust your instinct.”

“He hasn’t before.”

Ward snorts, gives her an incredulous, almost envious look:

“When ?”

“With you.”

“That’s different.”

“Is it ? He said my... my feelings were involved, and so he wanted to protect me. Is it really different now that I’m being chased because of what I am ?”

“What are you ?”

The question takes her by surprise, and her leg abruptly stops.

Her eyes must be big with too many things when she turns them on him, but Ward just stands there, looking back at her with no fear or judgment.

Awaiting an answer, she realizes.

“You don’t know ?”

A question to a question, the Skye way of deflecting.

And it seems to work, because right then his phone rings, and he spares her a glance before answering.

“Hey.”

He stays silent while the person on the line talks, and Skye lowers her eyes back on the computer.

“Ok. Ok, thanks. Yeah, I’ll call him. Well I don’t know, just… make something up, ok ? I’ll see you. Thanks again.”

He rubs the bridge of his nose for a second and she’s tempted to ask what’s wrong, but that’d be overstepping, and she isn’t sure she wants to know, anyway. Then his features mold to adapt to his professional mask.

“She says she called in a few favors within Shield and guess what ?”

Eyebrows raised, she indulges him.

“What ?”

“They’re from Shield.”

“Bullshit.”

“Couldn’t find anything on their work, but they’re definitely in the database, registered as agents.”

Well. Shit.

After a _very_ stiff argument and a hot shower to calm herself down, Skye is ready to take back the reins of the investigation and stay glued before the computer if needed to prove they are _not_ sent by Shield. 

Except that when she comes into the room all dried up and dressed, the specialist has vanished into thin air. Granted, she took her sweet time in the shower and wrapped herself in the soft cotton towels for a while, but he could have waited until she made sure he was alive and not kidnapped to go sulk somewhere else.

Some time ago, she would have jumped to the conclusion that he left her there, that this situation was too hard and demanding of a predicament to stay any longer.

Although the thought comes to mind, she doesn’t let it linger more than a few seconds and pushes it aside in favor of wondering where he might be. For safety’s sake, she tucks a blade between her pants and her ankle.

Walking towards the door, she rubs her fists against her eyes and sets off to find Grant throughout the hotel.


	7. Holy hands, will they make me a sinner ?

He was always coming after her, it seems only right she’s the one seeking him out now.

She finds him at the hotel bar, head hung low and grip tight on the drink. The light is dimmed on purpose, to incite to consumption, and hits only the back of his neck. It seems fitting, for whatever reason.

After a second of hesitation, Skye exhales and slowly steps towards him, sliding on the stool on his right. It feels dangerously like walking into enemy territory knowing there is no escape plan.

He doesn’t even glance up.

She waits for a reaction, and when nothing comes she gestures to the barman and orders a simple gin tonic for herself. Once it’s clear Grant will not engage any type of conversation, she says:

“Rough night ?”

He chuckles darkly before taking another sip of his drink, and Skye has the awful feeling she is missing something. She always does, these days.

“Why do you care ?”

“I just do.”

“That’s real dumb.”

“I haven’t been known to make smart choices lately.”

“Makes both of us then,” he mutters, staring at the counter.

She counts to twelve. She watches him, the way his eyes are a bit hazy with alcohol and don’t seem to stop at the room, but go further, gazing in the emptiness.

Skye counts to sixteen.

She asks :

“Do you regret coming after me ?”

His shrug, which comes a while after her question, is her only answer and the proof that he’s much more inebriated than she first thought if the information took this much time getting to his brains.

“I didn’t have anything to loose until I met you,” Grant suddenly says, his voice rough from its defeated inflection. “You, FitzSimmons, even May and Coulson. And then, I lost all of it. All of you, and the only person… the sole reason that led me to betray you was _gone_.”

She watches as he empties his drink and orders another to the bartender, who sends her a questioning look. She shrugs, because what exactly can she do ? She’s not responsible for him, and she’s pretty sure he would not appreciate her getting in the way of his decisions. If he wants to get drunk, he probably has his reasons.

Once his drink is refilled with something resembling a strong whisky and his eyes bore into the alcohol like he can see the bottom of his glass, he speaks up.

“I guess, for some time, I made you out to be the reason I was alive, and I thought that if I fought for you, maybe it was the same thing as fighting for myself. Maybe I tried to reach redemption through you. I don’t know. I wasn’t exactly in the best set of mind.”

Abruptly, she wonders how much time he spent thinking about that, in his little cell, and then in hiding, and how many times he ended up thinking she was the way to salvation. She supposes she would’ve held on as hard as he did to the person that could be the answer to everything, in his place.

“You know I get it, right ?” She mumbles.

“No you don’t.”

“Ok, maybe I don’t, exactly, but… Losing the thing you were searching for all your life, the thing that came to define you ? I know what that’s like. My whole life, I was looking for my parents, and… Well.”

This time she’s the one to down her drink.

“None of it matter now anyway,” he mutters.

She notices his eyes are half-shut, staring down at the counter. Maybe it’s the meaningless side of it all that weighs on him. Maybe it’s just the alcohol.

Ignoring the odd pang in her chest, Skye sighs and declares:

“You should go to bed.”

There’s no answer.

“Grant.”

“Mmmh ?”

Ok, maybe he’s dozing off. She waves the bartender over, puts all the drinks on their tab, and then she gets up from her stool, putting a hand on Grant’s shoulder.

His head snaps up and his eyes find her own a second too late. That split second tells her he’s utterly wasted. Then he nods, or does something resembling to it, and stands up. His movement hits the glass that spills half on the counter, half on him.

“Fuck,” he whispers, wobbling.

Skye hurries at his side and puts his arm around her shoulders.

“Come on,” she urges him along, and it says a whole lot that he doesn’t protest.

They make their way as best they can through the lobby, all the way to the elevator, in which they enter as soon as it stops on the ground floor. Thank God, it’s empty.

There is no word uttered on Grant’s side, not even to grumble, and his body is extremely warm flushed against hers.

Their position and the way he leans on her makes her think of other times, and even though she told herself she would not stir up the past, she can’t do anything against the memories besetting her mind ( the Berserker stick in articular, heavy and burning his fucking brains).

Grant’s unsteady steps make her wonder if he walked like that when he was bleeding out of the two holes in his side.

The elevator coming to a stop with a shrill sound tears her from her wondering, and she drags Grant out in the corridor.

His phone suddenly rings in his pocket, and after some hesitation, she decides to fish it out for him (maybe it’s Coulson; she would give anything to talk to him right now). Her hand dips with difficulty in his jean’s pocket, and she fumbles to get the ringing device out when he breathes her hair in.

The ID picture is a girl. She’s incredibly beautiful, smiling at the camera smugly, like she knows a secret. Skye recognizes her; it’s Agent 33, before she got May’s face glued to hers.

She doesn’t understand, but after a few seconds of hesitation she swipes right and brings the phone to her ear.

“Hi.”

“You’re not Grant.”

Skye would laugh if the voice wasn’t so angry and snappy.

As it is, she avoids angering her any further, and simply clears her throat.

“Where is he ? Is he hurt ?”

“No, he… I don’t know why, but he got really, really drunk.”

Agent 33 lets the silence hang for a few long seconds where Skye does all she can to make Grant walk forward and not just slump against the wall.

“Put him on.”

Skye doesn’t like her tone, and would react if it were anyone else, but… Well, she doesn’t know what their relationship is but she is certainly the one he talked to on the phone and the one helping them, and -“ _I’ll come_ _home”_ he said- and she should put her mind at ease, at least.

“OK. Grant. Hey, Grant,” she nudges him, phone raised to his face.

His features light up when he sees the caller ID and he clumsily takes the phone to his ear, leaning less weight on Skye as he straightens up a bit.

“Kara !” He exclaims happily, almost child-like, into the phone.

Skye can’t really hear what Agent - _Kara_ is saying, but soon Grant’s face falls into a contrite expression, like a child being scolded, and she bites her lip.

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry. I know.” He nods, mumbles “Yeah, she’s there. Good night” and passes her the phone back. Puzzled, Skye takes it.

“Yeah ?”

“Listen,” a pissed off Palamas says, “he’s too drunk to do anything right now and I don’t want him to be alone tonight. It’s not safe. There are people after your and they will go for him first.”

She thinks she doesn’t know that ?

“So could you stay with him ?” She asks like someone is pulling her teeth out.

“Of course,” scoffs Skye, undignified, “I’m not just gonna leave him like that.”

“You did once.”

The silence is heavy but it’s anger and not guilt that leads Skye to snap:

“That was different.”

“Yeah. I know.”

Kara sighs on the line, and when she talks again it’s far more collected and neutral.

“Look, I just want him to be safe and to come home, ok ?”

“Yeah. I know.”

“So I need you to _keep_ him safe for now, and…”

She hesitates and Skye waits patiently, heaving a little as Grant leans on her more, getting sleepier and sleepier.

“And when you get back to your base, make sure they don’t put a bullet in his brains.”

“They wouldn’t.”

Kara scoffs.

“Yeah, right. You weren’t there when they called him for help.”

“Why did he come anyway ?”

“That’s for him to tell, not me. Just… Be safe, Skye.”

That’s oddly thoughtful.

“Thanks. I’ll make sure he’s fine.”

“Good.”

The call ends and Skye looks at the phone for awhile. Well. That was… peculiar.

The way to the room is twice as long as it would usually be, with Grant leaning on her and she’s pretty sure he breathes her hair at some point, but she chooses to ignore that for her own sanity.

“Come on,” she pants when they’re finally at the door, and God, she didn’t know muscles could weigh so much.

Nimbly handling both his body and the magnetic key, Skye manages to walk them both into the dark room, and then Grant is standing in front of her, 6 feet tall, and she looks up, blinking.

It’s a really odd atmosphere, one she doesn’t mind that much.

“Skye.”

It’s the way he says it, not her name in itself, that leads her to shake herself.

“I think you need to rest,” she states, pushing him backwards.

Groaning, he heavily falls on the bed. She doesn’t really understand why he takes the risk, the _huge_ risk of getting drunk when there are fucking people after them and he’s a goddamn agent, is he not ? He should know when to get drunk and when to keep a clear head.

He usually knows. He was a damn pain in the ass about it. But that was before, she reminds herself, that was before he betrayed them and played her and kidnapped her and she shot him.

It was before, when things were simple.

His grunt draws her back to reality, and she chuckles at the sight of his struggling to take his shirt off, head buried in the tissue.

“What are you doing ?”

“T’s sticky,” he slurs. “Not gonna sleep in that.”

Because of course. Why not.

“Ok, ok. Let me help,” she offers, and is surprised to find herself smiling as she says the words.

She climbs on the bed and approaches him, orders him to stand still after he almost elbows her in the face, and she is glad he listens. She takes the shirt off him easily after that, and she laughs when he shakes his head like a dog.

At that moment, his hands come to land on her hips, drag her into him so her thighs bracket his hips.

Baffled, Skye opens her mouth to tell him that he’s drunk and it’s not…

But then she sees his face and… he’s smiling.

He’s smiling like he doesn’t have those awful scars (she can’t see them in the dark but she’s acutely aware of them) and worse memories and hasn’t killed people; he’s smiling at her like they never broke each other’s heart and she didn’t gift him two holes in his side.

She loses her breath, lets her hands fall on each side of his face. Her previous hair would shield them from the rest of the world, if she hadn’t cut it. As it is, it simply brushes her cheek when she leans forward to see him better.

His left hand comes up to pet it like he actually enjoys it, and his amber eyes gleam with mirth and are glassy from alcohol.

She bites her lip.

“Why did you drink so much tonight ?”

His smile falls, his hand stops its ministrations on her hair. He doesn’t move, nor makes her move, so she waits.

He’s so beautiful in his pain, in the way he tries and tries again despite all the times he fails, and the world seems so fucking unfair when he confesses:

“I wanted to forget.”

It’s dark and this room is far from being a confessional, so Skye lowers herself even more on him and, gathering her courage, presses her lips on his neck. It’s not a kiss, it’s just a brush of her lips against his skin, to show him she’s here and because she actually wants to (it’s kind of dishonest because he’s drunk, but she’s not going further and she’s ready to grasp at everything he gives her).

“Forget what ?”

And her voice has lowered so much it becomes a whisper in his neck, its own kind of confession. His fingers bury themselves in the strands of her hair, gently scraping her skull and it’s so nice, it’s so domestic it brings tears to her eyes.

“That you want me dead.”

Here goes her smile.

“I don’t.”

“You shot me,” he replies.

It’s so weird, to hear it in his mouth when it doesn’t hold any disgust, anybitterness, not even sadness. It’s a fact, announced in the darkness that hides her crumbled face and it’s so weird, because he’s still caressing her hair like she’s precious.

“You shot me four times. In the back.”

“I know.”

“And you left me there, to bleed out. You went down.”

“I know.”

“I’m only alive because Kara saved me.”

She doesn’t answer. None of those sentences are accusations, only facts, an exposé of what happened to make it all go down. It might be worse.

“So why do I… I know you’re…”

She doesn’t want to hear the rest, so she pulls back just enough to roll them over gently, until he’s laid on the bed and his head finds its place in the crook of her neck. He doesn’t resist, he doesn’t try to be dominant, he just follows her lead and seems quite content with it. Far away, she can make out the sounds of cars passing in the street and people walking by, living their life. For some reason, it makes her clutch him tighter.

“I wish I still loved you,” he whispers, and his warm breath burns her skin less than his words burn her soul.

She has to swallow past the lump in her throat, has to restrain the tears before she can say:

“I wish you never did.”

And maybe it’s a lie, it probably is, but she has always lived her life weaving the truth with lies she told others and herself, so it’s not a novelty. But it seems to sting more this time (screw stinging, it feels like he’s tearing her heart out with his bare hands and pleading eyes).

She likes the way his body fits on her, likes the way his lips find a place on her neck almost naturally, likes the idea that nothing exists outside of this room; but it does, and they were always meant to collide but never meant to work.

So she listens to his breathing in the dark room, and she lets it wash over her, lets her mind dream of a better world where they’re not so damaged.

The next morning, she wakes up with tension coursing through her body because her first thought is “he’s gonna hate me”.

So she keeps her eyes shut and lets herself feel the coldness of the room now that his body isn’t on her anymore, the scent of coffee wafting from the kitchen. She stays like this, still, because she doesn’t want the sounds of him making coffee and breakfast stop once she stands up, doesn’t want to see his face close off and be mad at her because he told her things he didn’t want to last night.

So she lays there, breathing evenly, enjoying the quietness and the simplicity of it. She can almost believe, with her eyes closed, that the world isn’t real, that she didn’t acquire new powers and has no idea how to use them.

“You’re done pretending yet or should I come back later ?”

Well. She guesses she has to wake up, after all.

When she tentatively opens her eyes, it’s to the surprise of the dim-lighted room; he hasn’t turned on any light.

A surge of affection rushes through her but she keeps it confined, hidden so he doesn’t rip it from her. She finally dares to look in his direction, and he’s simply leaning against the counter, a mug in his hand and tousled hair and tired eyes and she wants this so bad it hurts.

“Morning.”

He simply nods. She thinks that this is it, last night was a whispered confession swept under the carpet in the morning.

She doesn’t want to think about what he said, or what she almost said.

So she stays laid down, eyes fixed on him because even if he doesn’t want her here, he still doesn’t want her dead and he just made coffee for fuck’s sake, and…

He walks towards her, another mug in his hand and bends down to set it on the nightstand.

“Made you one. Dark.”

She bites her lip not to smile, because his coffee must be infected with milk and sugar, of all things, and her heart hurts a little.

She nods, but doesn’t sit up.

“Thanks.”

He sighs.

“Look, I…”

“You don’t have to explain, Grant. You had a bad day, you got drunk. Wasn’t smart. Wasn’t good. But you did. I suppose you had your reasons.”

“Didn’t I tell you ?”

_You want me dead; I wish I still loved you._

She shakes her head.

And then he does something completely unexpected; he sighs again, leaving his cup on the counter, walks around the bed and sits on the right side of it, back against the headboard. He’s still close and she doesn’t trust herself so she stays on her back, keeps her eyes on the ceiling, and knows he does the same.It’s still dark in the room; she briefly wonders if his lips taste like coffee, now.

“Last night was… it’s been three years since the Asgardian case.”

Skye needs to wrap her head around it before she understands the true meaning of his words -he was raped, she abruptly remembers, he was raped- and when she does, she feels bile rise in her throat.

“After… after Lorelei”, he says through gritted teeth, and his voice is too close to steel for her to ignore the fact that he’s trying not to let it waver. “I couldn’t sleep. And I couldn’t… Yesterday, I just… I still felt her hands, and her lips, and it wasn’t…” he exhales shakily, and Skye wants to cry, all of a sudden, and take his hand.

She doesn’t. She fists them where they are gripping the blanket, clenches her jaw.

“I’m so sorry, Grant,” she simply says.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“It wasn’t yours either. And you deserved more than what was given to you afterwards.”

“I didn’t. I should’ve been better.”

“No. You deserved so much more,” she breathes again, and she has to shut her eyes to keep the tears contained because it’s the truth, and it hurts that he cannot see it. “You deserved much more than your family, and your brother, and Garrett. You deserved to be loved and cared for, not manipulated, conditioned, abused or used.”

He keeps silent and she lets him take the time he needs to understand the words and she hopes, so hard, that he can believe them, that she can make him see he deserved more than what was given to him.

“Thank you,” he simply says, after a whole fucking lot of time.

“I thought you were dead,” Skye says abruptly, and gulps.

He doesn’t answer.

“I thought… I thought I killed you.”

“Probably would’ve been better for some.”

“Not for me,” she confesses, blinking up at the ceiling. “God, not for me. When I thought I had killed you, I… God,” she suddenly cries out, “I told you to run faster. In that goddamn cell, I told you you should’ve run faster, and tried harder and I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean it, and then I shot you and everything was so fucked up I couldn’t breathe or think straight and…”

Inhaling deeply, she tries to regain her self-control (she promised she wouldn’t lose it again, didn’t she ?).

She turns on her side. Looks up at his immobile form. She’s glad she can discern his chest rising and falling even in the dark; she doesn’t want to analyze the reason for it.

“And then you came for me,” she murmurs. “You saved my life. And I didn’t…I don’t…”

“I lied,” he interrupts. “I promised I wouldn’t lie to you, remember ?”

She nods, before recalling he isn’t looking at her.

“Yeah.”

“When I told you I only came because Fitz asked me to, I lied.”

His voice is cool and perfectly controlled, if a little raspy. She gets that he doesn’t want her to imagine this is forgiveness, or an apology, or anything like it. He’s just telling her the truth.

“I came because I wanted to. Because, despite everything and what happened last time in Puerto Rico, I still wanted to find you and… And it’s fucking stupid, isn’t it ?”

“I guess. Not as stupid as shooting you though.”

He snorts, and she mentally congratulates herself.

“I don’t know about that.”

“I do.”

She thinks this might be it, the moment where everything magically falls back into place, where the pieces of their shattered lives suddenly fit right, but…

But that’s not how life works, especially not theirs.

“I have to call Coulson,” he informs her, getting up.

She nods at his back, ignores the disappointment creeping up on her and turns to her coffee.

She could ask him to talk to Coulson, she knows, instead of feeling like an object in a transaction, but she finds that she doesn’t want to. She wants to stay in that little bubble for as long as possible.

She presses the button to open the curtains and takes a sip of her cup.

He got it just right.

She’s dressed and freshened up by the time Ward comes back inside the room. The gruff expression on his face and the annoyance rolling off him in waves are quite clear signs that what happened is gone by and they’re back to being… whatever. Him pissed at her even when she tries so hard, she guesses.

“The meeting is a one hour drive from here,” he states, walking towards the bed and pulling his backpack from underneath it. “We should go.”

“You’re coming with ?” She asks, surprised.

Grant huffs, like he’s annoyed she asked or annoyed he has to come, and zips his bag. He reaches for the keys on the nightstand, and he seems so eager to go she’s glad she has everything already packed.

“Coulson has something to give me.”

Skye wants to ask -the question is burning her tongue- but she knows it will only make him close off, and they’ve found common ground, or something akin to it, and she doesn’t want to compromise that.

“They don’t…” she begins.

“Know that you shot me. Yeah. Figured that one out,” he states, tucking his gun in his waistband.

Like it doesn’t matter. Like it hasn’t ripped her fucking heart out, to lie to them and keep this secret hidden away with her darkest desires and scariest secrets.

She gulps, looks away. They get their bags ready, hunch them on their shoulder. The walk to the lobby is silent and Skye’s brain is working high-speed but she doesn’t know what for.

She’s still thinking about their assailants, about them being Shield, about what she’s gonna tell Coulson; still pondering about the weapons and the robbery of the armament, the closed files on the men that appeared as fucking ghosts even as she hacked in most databases.

What a cluster fuck, she thinks, rubbing her temples.

They give the keys back to reception with her arm around his waist and his on her shoulders, robotic radiant smiles on their face. The receptionist smiles back and thanks them for their stay and then they’re just out. They make their way to the car in silence, still and she almost fights him when he climbs in the driver seat but whatever, life is all about choosing your battles and she figures out they fought enough in the last few days.

“Did Coulson ask you to come ?” She asks, suddenly suspicious.

He doesn’t answer, simply shuts the driver’s door. Skye huffs, climbs in the passenger seat just as he starts the car.

“Ward, if he asked you to come I can’t promise he…”

“You think I don’t know that ? He’s baiting me there. But I sure hope he’s not gonna do anything he might regret later.”

She crosses her arms on her chest, looks out the window. She thinks of Kara, waiting for him (she doesn’t want to think about their little home and their shared trust), and thinks of all Grant has given up to come and find her. She thinks of him in the cell, with two long scars on each wrist and a deep one on the side of his face.

Skye looks back at him.

“Whatever goes down there, I just… You can count on me, is all I’m saying. To watch your back.”

What fucking irony.

She waits for him too meet her eyes, to understand she is serious about this. When he does, his irises are still dark but it seems like they’ve lost their harshness.

“Ok.”

And yeah, maybe that’s another step forward.

The drive is mostly silent, until she huffs and puts the radio on. Even then, there are too many commercials. But when the music is on, she can’t help but tap her fingers on her thigh in rythm, and notice his fingers drum on the wheel.

She bites back her smile and looks out the window.

Already, she finds herself melancholic of the hotel. Because that’s it. It’s over.

Whatever happened in the dim-lighted room is gone and she isn’t sure they can find themselves in a similar situation ever again. Not the life and death situation, of course, nor one where he’s wasted and whispering all his secrets, but one where they dare to be vulnerable and honest with each other.

The realization that she wants tobe in a situation like this again hits her. Hard.

Skye turns her head to face him, mouth open, but her eye catches a black van going towards them at full speed.

“Grant !” She screams just before the van hits their left side, sending their car barreling, and her head smashes against the window in a blur of red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once more, sorry for the delay (but that's kind of a given at this point).   
> Thanks for reading, I really hope you enjoyed. Don't forget to leave kudos and comments, they absolutely make my day every time !


	8. Do you tear yourself apart to entertain like me ?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY ! Ok, now that's out of the way, enjoy !! There is a lot of stuff to talk about in this chapter, so see you in the notes for some clarification !

What snaps her back to reality is pain, splitting her head in two.

Blinking, Skye discards the thick and hot liquid making its course down the side of her face and tries to focus on the facts, as Ward and May taught her.

Assess the situation- the car is upright, must have turned one or two times, no more- they’re still on the road. Assess your state - her whole body is heavy and feels numb, but she’s quite sure nothing is broken and she must have blacked out for a few seconds only. Assess your partner’s state. Acutely aware of the ache in her ribs, she coughs and calls out, heavy hand gesturing wildly towards the driver’s seat.

“Grant.”

No response.

Skye leans forward, restrained by the seatbelt that digs into her ribs.

What the hell.

“Grant.”

She lets her power run through her fingers so it can pat at his arm gently in order to feel the slow beat of his heart and the drops of blood falling from his nose. She lets herself be reassured by the fact that he’s definitely alive, but then there’s a crunching sound, and when she manages to focus back on the outside, she can see two pairs of feet coming towards them, stepping on the glass as they go. 

That’s not good.

Trying to reach her gun sends a sharp spark of pain all the way up her right arm, so she settles on discreetly unbuckling her seatbelt. The pressure on her chest disappears some, and then the footsteps are right next to her door and there’s not time to waste.

Before they have the chance to crouch down and shoot them, Skye surges out of the car, rolling out of harm’s way a split instant before they shoot the ground, and then she’s facing two stocky-built men cladded in black sweaters and what is up with the black outfits all the time ?

Two IWI Tavors, probably knives, but they won’t get the chance to reach those.

“Get your hands…”

She doesn’t let the stouter one finish, rushing forward so that her shin and knee push the entirety of his upper body backwards and leave him gasping for air and scrambling for balance.

Without wasting a second, Skye quakes the second man’s legs, sending him to the ground with a cry of surprise, and she slams her elbow backwards in the other’s face so he won’t get up again. There’s a spurt of blood, an electric wave throughout her arm all the way to her shoulder, black spots clouding her vision for an instant.

The instant is enough for the man before her to get up and, when she whirls around to attack, she is met with the end of his barrel.   
She wonders if there’s time to quake his weapon out of his hands before he pushes the trigger, but the odds aren’t in her favour, so she stays where she is, entire body taunt as a string, ready for the tiniest opening.

She’s not going with him alive is all she knows.

“I don’t wanna kill you,” he states, and she thinks of Ward in the seat behind her.

“The feeling isn’t mutual.”

Her gun is so _close_.

His is closer.

“Who do you work for ?”

“You know who.”

“Why do they want me ?”

“The fuck if I know. Now,” he snaps with a jerk of his gun that gets it closer to her face than she likes, “you’re going to put your hands behind your head very slowly. I swear if you make a move I’ll…”

A shot reverberates on the buildings’ stony walls, sending the few citizens that remained running in all directions with screams of panic, and the man collapses dead before her, a hole in his forehead.

Once again, perfect aim.

“So that’s what happened in Puerto Rico,” Ward rasps out when she turns around, slumped against the hood of the car, turned upside down. She refrains the urge to run to him and ask if he’s okay, settling for watching him stand up straighter with flinches painful to even watch.

There is a scarlet flower blooming on his right side.

She looks away.

“We need to move,” she announces, scrutinizing their surroundings and clenching her hand on the handle of her gun. “There are probably more waiting.”

“Probably.”

Though he says it very calmly, like he’s expecting it, he doesn’t budge, only checks his magazine with a dismissal look.

She shouts.

“Ward ! We need to move !”

“You go to the rendezvous point.”

“What ?”

“You go. I’ll cover you until you get there safely.”

“This is not the time to be fucking _benevolent_ , Ward !”

“I’m not,” he says, and she could be wrong but it looks like he’s containing a chuckle. “The deal was to get you there safely. So you get there safely.”

She would argue, but where’s the point really ? She can’t even ensure his freedom and safety if he meets up with Coulson and the Shield team. She might hate everything about this situation -most of all that he has to stay behind to “protect” her, that leaves a bad taste in her mouth- but she has hated everything this past week, so.

“Try not to get killed,” she bids him.

Maybe he notices the unsaid, maybe he doesn’t.

Either way, he nods.

She takes one last look at his tired face, at the blood under his nose, staining his beard, at the fingers holding the gun with a reassuring familiarity, like it’s where it belongs. That’s a sad thought, but it comforts her at the moment.

Skye whirls around and runs.

It’s just a few streets away, but the way is spent looking over her shoulder, her gun clutched tight even as she’s trying to conceal it from passersby’s vision, and the itinerary turns round and round inside her head -right, left, right again, straight ahead, left. On top of that, there’s a sliver of guilt at leaving Ward behind that is nibbling at her, making her queasy in a manner she cannot afford right now.

Besides, she decides, right now she runs for her life, to her family, and then she’ll figure the rest out.

Skye never thought there would be a day where she would be thankful to all those torturous joggings at dawn, but here she is, barely panting when the Shield team comes into sight.

They’re quite recognizable, Coulson pacing with his phone at his ear and sunglasses permanently perched on his nose even though he looks ridiculous in them under the storm clouds blocking the sunlight.

All her breath leaves her lungs.

Thank God.

She thrusts herself in his arms like in her father’s, and nothing feels dangerous anymore. Now that Coulson is here, May a faithful shadow by his side, Skye knows she’s safe. His grip tightens on her, May’s hand comes to her shoulder so she knows she’s here, and glad (though it doesn’t show).

“We almost waited.”

“Sorry,” Skye chuckles, pulling away to smile at him. “Ran into some trouble.”

“Let’s go.”

There is no objection on her part. She climbs in the black (always black, goddamn, she misses Lola’s take colour) SUV while May settles behind the wheel, Coulson in the passenger seat.

She feels like their child, which is not a bad feeling to have in this instant. After the rollercoaster that was her alliance with Jiaying and the toll that took on their relationship, she’s glad they’re reunited and that they don’t treat her differently from before (well, they do; but that has nothing to do with her parents, everything to do with the unpredictable, destructive power running through her veins and breaking her bones).

Soon, they’re rolling away from the car crash, the two bodies, and Ward.

Skye clutches her arm, allows herself to feel the pain.

“You ok ?”

The question comes from May, and she crosses her mentor’s gaze in the rearview mirror.

“Yeah.”

“Ward ?”

She knows what May means, what she’s aiming at, so Skye does not let anything transpire and is careful to make her voice as plain as possible.

“Don’t know. He stayed behind to make sure I reached you.”

“Yeah,” Coulson snorts, “I bet.”

“We heard there was a car-crash, what happened ?”

“We were ambushed. I don’t know how…”

“We’ll figure that out later.”

Yeah.

It can wait. Right now, home sweet home.

The base is, in fact, radically different from the way she left it.

As soon as they hit the secured entry, Skye frowns.

“What happened here ?”

They share a look, May crooking an eyebrow, and Skye almost sighs at the silent communication at her expense.

“AC, come on,” she insists, meeting his eye dead on when he turns to her. “You said you encountered trouble, what happened ?”

“You’ll see soon enough.”

And she does.

The base is overflowing with people rushing to and fro, the few Quin-jets have become dozens awaiting in the garage, and Skye has to physically force her mouth to remain close despite the shock.

The hustle and bustle is totally new, and not exactly welcome in her state of sleep-depravation and the sharp pain sending her little reminders every few moments of her dislocated shoulder.

“What the hell….”

A freakishly strong mass collides with her, and Skye sputters before registering the petite woman in her arms is in fact her friend, and not one enemy or another.

“Thank God,” the biochemist whispers in her shoulder, tightening her hold.

The painful hiss that escapes her gritted teeth gets the English’s attention, and when she steps back her face is pulled in what Fitz calls the “doctor look”.

“Are you hurt ? Why didn’t you tell me, what are you…”

“It’s fine, really, but what the hell happened to the base ?”

“I’ll make you a deal,” Simmons states, fingers already patting her arm and her shoulder, brows pulled in concentration, “I’ll tell you all about it once you’re on my table fit to get stitched up, and you’ll tell me all about your escapade.”

No one has ever stood between Jemma Simmons and a patient and got out unscathed, and Skye is not about to make that mistake. After sending a look to a smiling Coulson, she lets herself get dragged to the med-bay.

And yeah, maybe there are too many people, maybe there are unknown faces everywhere and an odd atmosphere reigning, like on a battlefield between two sides, but still. This is home.

“So there was another Shield all along ? And Gonzalez runs it ? And they knew about Afterlife ?”

Simmons hums, unbothered by Skye’s utter confusion and the way her brain is paddling to comprehend the new information. They always wanted Shield to be bigger, more efficient, but she never thought for a second that it would come at Coulson’s expense; at their expense.

“What about me ?” She asks, lower. They’re alone in the medical room, but she knows walls have ears and there can never be any secret within Shield’s core.

Simmons freezes a few seconds; not enough to be noticeable by any stranger, enough to be worrying.

“They don’t,” she mutters under her breath. She doesn’t know if it’s for safety, or because Jemma is still scared or repelled by her powers and likes to pretend they don’t exist.

The next stitch makes Skye close her eyes and grit her teeth, so she cannot see her friend’s face when she says :

“And you can’t trust anyone. Mack and Bobbi were with Gonzalez all along. Tried to chase Coulson down. Tried to steal Fury’s blackbox.”

There’s bitterness in her voice, anger in her words, yet her hands are steady.

She envies such control.

“Mack and Bobbi both ?”

Oh.

 _Oh_.

“What did Hunter say ?”

She asks that just so Simmons will talk while finishing to treat her wound and not notice her patient lost in thought.

Grant warned her, didn’t he ? He told her about Bobbi. He told her about Shield. Fucking hell, she realizes, he knew about her being a double-agent (triple-agent, her mind supplies when she remembers her Hydra-times) before anyone in Shield knew.

That’s…. A blow to her ego.

She’ll avoid telling Coulson of that.

But so what ? Does that mean Shield, Gonzalez, really sent the team after her ? What does all of it fucking mean ?

She seeks Fitz out, because he’s the most soothing presence and her closest friend, and Skye needs a place to both lay low and recharge her batteries without having to worry about reports or someone’s expectations. She doesn’t want to go to her room, far from it, as it reminds her of the time she threw so much shit over the wall separating their bunks in the off chance it hit Fitz in the face, and all the pingpong games they had over that dumb thing.

So she sets off to the lab, evidently finding the engineer lost in his work.

“Knock knock.”

“Who even says knock knock,” he starts, not tilting his head up from the microscope lens. “Just knock on the door, that’s what it’s here for.”

“You know I won’t.”

He hums noncommittally, and she takes that as her cue to step towards him, to the desk he never uses (he likes to keep himself busy and active as to not dwell on the damaged wires in his brain).

She hops on it, her feet dragging the rolling chair to her so she can rest them on the seat.

“What are you doing ?”

“Figuring out yet another way to save the world.”

“And not save me ? I’m vexed.”

“The best were on the case, were they not ?”

There might be a teasing note to his voice, or a curious one. Fitz is not hard to read, never has been, but now that his brains is in a scramble and she herself is overanalyzing everything, it’s getting tougher and tougher to decipher what people aim at when they talk to her.

She doesn’t like it.

“Why did you ask him to find me ?” She asks, careful not to let her face show anything. It’s not really for him, more for her. She can’t afford to loose control over herself like she’s done in the past week. 

Fitz snorts and glances at her face.

“You have to ask ?”

“Fitz.”

He sighs.

“Because I knew he was the best for this, and I knew that when it came to you, he wouldn’t say no and he would cross every line as long as it meant you were safe.”

She keeps her mouth shut, shame and guilt seeping into her bloodstream like the drug they injected her, a few days ago. God, it was only a week. 

“He could’ve said no.”

“But he didn’t,” Fitz shrugs, still maneuvering something she couldn’t begin to understand between his fingers. “Because he’s still…”

She doesn’t want to hear what he’s gonna say, so she cuts him abruptly.

“I shot him.”

“Good,” he simply states, “he deserved it.”

“No, Fitz. In Puerto Rico. I shot him four times in the back while he was trying to get me out of there.”

That gets him to set his gadgets aside and turn fully towards her. As she’s sitting on the desk and he’s up, his head reaches her shoulders, and she notices the incredulity settling in his irises as well as the dark marks under his eyes, speaking of sleepless nights and days filled with worry that settles heavily on his shoulders and confuse his brains even more. 

“Say what now ?”

Skye lowers her eyes on her hands, fingers fidgeting with the restless energy that has taken its rightful place within her from the moment the Diviner touched her skin.

“We were… I was taken hostage, remember ? Well I wasn’t… I wasn’t the only one. And Grant neutralized the guards so we could escape, and when he turned his back to check the hallway was clear… I didn’t even think. I took the gun, and fired.”

“Four times,” Fitz says slowly, like he wants to check. She chins up although her confession seems to drag her head down.

“Yeah. And I left. And I thought… I thought he was dead. I really did.”

“And you never thought to tell us ? You never thought it could matter ?”

“Of course I wanted to tell you ! But you were all…” She flails her arms around, intent on defending herself. “You hated him and I thought I had killed him but it didn’t feel like a victory, you know ? I couldn’t see you mourn him, and I couldn’t see you brush it aside and sweep it under the carpet like it was nothing. I thought I had killed him, Fitz. I was a fucking murderer, and for what ?”

Fitz shakes his head, brows furrowed and lips pulled down. She hates to be the one putting this expression on his face.

“Do you think I’m a monster ?” She whispers.

And God, if he tells her yes she’s done, she doesn’t know what she’ll do because he’s the one who gripped her hand and told her she was just different now and that nothing was wrong with that. He was the one who kept her from breaking herself from the inside.

Fitz looks up at her, eyes sad and shoulders sagged, not unlike the time he was imagining Simmons. 

“No. I think you made a… a mistake. He hurt you so much, Skye, he hurt you so much.”

“He hurt you more.”

Fitz shakes his head.

“It’s not the same. And I got my revenge, didn’t I ?” He says with an awful, self-hating smile.

“Fitz…”

“Don’t. What I want to say is… I… I probably would’ve done something awful, if I hadn’t been stopped. And I can’t act like I wouldn’t have. But you made a mistake, Skye. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I probably would’ve shot him too, if I had the skill.”

She chuckles, drying her eyes.

“But four times ? Hell, that’s some revenge right there.”

Revenge. That’s the word she despises. That’s exactly what they arrest people for, getting revenge. There is a whole speech to it, they’re not the justice, it won’t bring them anything, nor any semblance of peace. And look at her now, at all of them, doing exactly what they prevent citizens to do.

“I know. I guess I just have to thank God he doesn’t hate my guts enough to leave me to die.”

“Yeah,” he mutters, “I think Grant Ward defies expectations when it comes to us.”

“Us ? You talked to him ?”

Fitz shrugs, but she knows him well enough by now to get that he’s uncomfortable.

“I’m the one who called to get you, so yeah, we… talked.”

She notices his hesitation, does not dwell on it; it all gets complicated when Ward is involved or mentioned, even mere words have their importance. His confession, drives her own out of her mouth before she can think about it.

“I don’t know if… If we can move past it, I guess I can, or I’m trying to, but he… Fuck,” she sighs, dropping her head in her hands. “I don’t even know if he _wants_ to move past it.”

“I believe he does, like he tried moving on from the past.”

“What do you mean ?”

“I… After the… incident in the cell, I. I talked to him. A little, just a little, but I wanted to…to hate him freely, at the beginning, and then… To understand why he did what he did. Why he was so loyal to Garrett. And the truth, the truth is terrible Skye.”

“I know the truth,” she whispers.

“Do you understand it ?”

“Do you ?”

He looks up from his microscope, and she wonders if he focuses on the experiment just so she won’t see the look on his face. It’s a little lost, a little angry, but all in all, it’s fucking broken, and maybe that’s the main reasons he hated Ward for so long.

After all, she can understand being pulled in so many directions you don’t know which way to turn, she’s lived it with the Rising Tide, but hurting Fitz ? That’s something she can’t forget, and even though she’s trying to forgive him, she doesn’t know if she can find the strength to do it for this.

“Some of it, yes,” he admits like it’s a curse. “And it scares me.”

“What ? Why ?”

“I’m scared because… As different as Ward and I are, I think… I think I can see myself in him. Who I would have been, had my father not left. Had I not met Jemma. It… It’s terrifying.”

“Fitz. You’re nothing like Ward. And I don’t believe for a second that you would have done what he did. I need you to know that.”

Despite her honesty and the way he seems to believe her sincerity, she can see it’s not enough. It never is. She has the courtesy of not contradicting him, nor insisting on the matter, and so he talks again, looking right at her this time. He’s always more comfortable when the discussion is not about him, but about others. Fitz has a calming aura to him, on the outlines of his silhouette, that soothes her powers and herself as soon as she’s in his vicinity.

“You don’t owe him to try, Skye. If I brought it up, it’s for your sake, not his. So you can try and maybe find a little peace, after everything. Closure.”

“There won’t be enough closure in the world for Ward and I.”

She would like the words to hold a little more venom, a little more conviction, but they don’t. They sound rather sad to her own ears, she just hopes Fitz doesn’t hear it.

If he does, he doesn’t comment on it. He just smile this brittle smile of his, and shakes his head a little.

“Get out of my lab, I’ve got work to do.”

“Yes sir.”

“Hey, Skye ?”

She turns around.

“Yeah ?”

“If there is one thing I know about Ward,” the engineer begins with a sigh and slumped shoulders, “is that despite all his attempts not to, he cares about us. Now that Garret isn’t there to keep him from bonding with people and… And ordering stuff, I guess he’s going after what he wants and he is… Maybe he’s trying to be what he wants to be.”

“And what’s that ?”

It’s said a little teasingly, like it’s not that big of a deal. Maybe it’s not. Or it wasn’t, until he _tried_.

“I don’t know. I don’t think he does, either.”

“Maybe I could ask him,” she dares, trying to inflect her voice with a little humor, but Fitz probably sees right through her; she’s asking for permission, for a reason to try as well and respond to Ward’s efforts.

“Maybe you can.”

Skye takes that as her cue, sending him a little nod, and then exiting the room.

She has a lot of shit to figure out.

“No fucking way,” she mutters at the sight that appears on her computer screen, like a sentence she didn’t wish to deliver.

She checks no one is around to see.

All clear.

Skye lets her fingers wander on the keyboard of their own volition, carefully reading the documents displayed before her.

“No fucking way,” she repeats before jumping on her feet and sprinting to her bunk. Safely tucked in her room with the door bolted, she fishes her phone out, still reading the reports in the corner of her eye. She dials his number with one hand, cursing when her phone almost slips between her fingers, and she brings the device to her ear.

It rings.

Twice.

She curses at him, (doesn’t let the idea that he might be dead linger any longer that it needs to)and then he picks up.

“Ward ?”

“Skye ? What…”

“I found them. The guys, I found them.”

“Where ?”

“Shield database. They were ex Shield agents.”

“Ex ? They quit ?”

“They died.”

Silence, then:

“Ok. Talk to me.”

“Alright, so I couldn’t find much info on those guys, not on their past anyway, but what’s clear is that they were all Shield agents at one point or another. And they all allegedly died in action. The only reason it took me so much time to find is because the files are redacted. The names are crossed out, and I had to… Whatever, it doesn’t matter. But they’ve all been part of Shield, and…”

“ Skye ? I need you to listen to me.”

“What ?”

“You should shut up.”

“Excuse me ?”

“You should shut up, and meet me somewhere with the info, ok ? Make sure you don’t leave any trace of your search and…”

“Yeah, Grant, I know how to delete my tracks, thank you. Where ?”

“Get out of the base, I’ll text you the address.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so the timeline is a bit confusing in this : I discarded the entire reveal of another Shield in the early season 2, while the stuff with Skye’s parents still happened. Thus, Skye has her powers, has met both her parents and her mother died (as said in the previous chapter), but she was separated from the team during the entire time, thus not knowing that there is a second Shield, run by Gonzalez, to whom Bobbie and Mack are loyal. There probably won’t be mentions of Lincoln or Rayna, as the timeline is already too messy, but Gonzalez is alive in this, and runs Shield while Coulson has fallen back to being a team agent, even though he has his own team.
> 
> Feel free to ask questions if you have them (although I'm not that clear on the timeline myself), and leave kudos and comments, they inspire me to write !!


	9. We're painted red to fit right in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look.  
> I know.  
> I struggled with this chapter, but Destiel is canon and Biden won, so here is a gift for you all because I could cry from happiness right now.  
> Please take care of yourselves, and enjoy !

The coffeeshop is too public for her taste, the inside far too exposed by all the windows, but Skye has to admit that as a spy, it wouldn't cross her mind to look for a wanted person there. If her eyes are immediately drawn to him, it’s because she was looking for him and has been conditioned to notice where he stood in a room, to take his stance in and determine from that only if danger was luring or not. It’s a habit she has tried to shake for a while, now.

Sliding in the booth opposite side of him confirms her suspicions : this sitting gives a view of both entrances, the main one and the back door for employees, while staying hidden by other tables. Only once he’s turned the page does he look up at her, and that’s how she gets he knew from the moment she walked in she was here.

Nowadays, despite his many demonstrations of aptitude, she has troubles reminding herself he’s one of the best field agents there ever was in Shield (or Hydra, but she doesn’t like thinking about that either), coming close to Romanov. Which also makes him one of the most dangerous. Doesn’t feel like it, though, when he tilts his head and watches her.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” he greets back, pen moving between his fingers. “Where’s your drink ?”

“I…didn’t get one.”

“You can’t just walk in a coffeeshop and not order anything.”

“What are you, the coffee police ?” She sneers at his offended expression, too confused for it to hold any bite.

“I’m concerned for the minimum-waged employees that will get yelled at if you take a spot and order nothing.”

“Oh my…”

“Plus, you’re gonna need coffee for this, aren’t you ?”

She checks her watch : it’s only 12, and she hasn’t eaten yet. Which, honestly, is kind of perfect cause it gives her a reason to be out if anyone asks. Anyway, after a dirty look sent at his far-too-amused face, she gives up, already on her feet towards a well-deserved cup of dark bliss.

The exhaustion in the barista’s eyes makes her tip generously; hell, she was a barista once. She has kind of been through every job there is.

When she sits back in the booth, Ward takes a look at her cup, then at the file on the table like he’s satisfied.

“Do you have a closet full of files, or how does that work ?”

“These are actually for you,” he responds, sliding another very thick file towards her.

The paper is rough in her hands as she lets her eyes roam over the words, glancing briefly at the satellite pictures and endless lines of a report.

“What’s that ?”

“The shipments of weapons that were modified, and the official reports of the robberies, or as they call them, “hiccups.”

“That’s some pretty huge hiccups.”

“Yeah, well, it’s the American government,” Ward shrugs while taking a sip of his cup, “it’s not like they take responsibility for their mistakes.”

Trying to gather the information they already unearthed is more complicated than she anticipated, Fitz’s words still loud in her ears, Ward’s eyes intent on her face as he waits for her next reflexion, and the threat that Gonzalez represents to the place that has become her family still lingering in the backgrounds as she has not witnessed it with her own two eyes yet. She shakes her head.

“The weapons were from Russia, right ?”

“Some of it, yeah, but that’s not really important.”

“Then what is ?”

“The names that weren’t redacted. These are the guys we need to talk to.”

Skitting over the pages, she lets her eyes pass over the black patches, and sends him an exasperated look once she’s done so.

“Oh, you mean the dead people ? Yeah, that’ll be useful.”

“Well we don’t know they’re dead until we have a body, do we ?”

Yeah, that’s… something she should have internalized long ago, between the time she got shot twice in the stomach and the time her mother tried to kill her.

“So next step is finding either them or their bodies. Piece of cake,” she sighs.

Her coffee comes in handy, as she already wants to bang her head against the table. It’s just…. There’s so many things to do she doesn’t even know where to start, yet it feels like they’ve got nothing, so trying to drown in her coffee seems like the right reaction.

“Ok. Ok,” she repeats, clutching her cup like the holy Graal. “Enough hypotheses for now. What do we know for a fact ?” She asks, more for herself than him.

He answers all the same.

“You weren’t just attacked, you were targeted. Some attackers were Shield agents at one point, though that’s something Shield tried to hide by redacting the mission reports. They were all declared dead on duty. The ones who ordered and coordinated the attacks are either tight with the government, Shield, or both, or they have great means to meet their end, cause infiltrating Shield and organizing an attack on a ship filled with government weapons, that takes some time, money, and relations.

Especially to target a particular agent, who isn’t a high-ranked one. So that means they’re after you specifically, and managed to gather information, far too much if they got to you.”

“God, finding those guys will be endless.”

“I thought you liked being cramped up in a room with your laptop for only company.”

“Shut up. It’s gonna be a nightmare trying to bypass Gonzalez’s security now that…” She trails off.

“Are you sure it wasn’t him ?” Ward says instead of asking her to continue, for which she’s oddly grateful. Puerto Rico, and all that godforsaken memory entails, is still too sore a spot for them to tackle the subject now. Her powers make her a beacon for every ill-intentioned agency, team, and whatnot, so Skye simply drinks coffee again, eyes drawn to the table. Her solace is short-lived, though.

“Are we going to talk about it ?” He asks, quietly but determined before taking a sip of his disgustingly sweet beverage that she can smell from here, and turning a page like he hasn’t just sucker punched her in the gut.

Skye freezes.

That’s the moment he wonders why the fuck they’re here, and frankly, she cannot blame him. Why are they here exactly ? Together after everything, hidden away from Shield, because of her and her powers and the way she feels bound to Ward henceforth, even though he hasn’t asked anything of her and saved her life just because. What is she supposed to answer, when she doesn’t even know herself what they’re doing ?

“Talk about what ?”

Playing dumb seldom worked with Ward, but at least it could make him vocalize it and not force her to say anything out loud, so she can have plausible deniability.

The creases next to his eyes betray amusement when he leans towards her, entire body shifting easily to get closer. Suddenly, she’s reminded of the blood that was spreading on his side when he was saving her ass and gulps down the question that burns her throat with intensity : _Did you pull your stitches again ?_

“Ok then.”

Expecting the other shoe to drop, she keeps on studying him even as his attention returns to the files. His beard, she notices, is neater than before, paradoxically making his appearance both rougher and softer. After a shake of her head, she pulls her computer out of her bag. Names and dates and redacted information in mind, Skye starts it and has just begun opening up the tabs to compare the names in Ward’s files to the ones she just found, when Ward sighs.

“Why don’t you go over this with Coulson again ?”

She sends him a dark look over her computer.

“Because I can’t tell him I’ve been snooping around now, can I ? And when I tell him, I better have a wholesome case, solid through and through. I need to have more, this is far from enough to open an investigation. Besides, I already told you he has a lot on his plate right now.”

“Now it sounds like you’re looking for excuses.”

“Excuse me ?”

“Laying it a bit thick is all I’m saying.”

“I’ve been flouting every goddamn Shield rule in the book,” Skye says with too much bite, “I can’t go to him without tangible evidence.”

“Evidence of what ? That Shield is dirty ?”

“Ok, first of all, Shield is not dirty, they…we are being targeted by Hydra moles. Probably.”

“It’s kind of funny that these moles didn’t come out when Shield fell the first time, isn’t it ?”

“Well. You didn’t. Maybe they had a bigger picture in mind.”

“Or maybe there are no moles, Skye. They got pulled out when Hydra needed them, there was a cleansing within Shield. Of course there are probably spies still laying round the corners, as in every goddamn agency, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what you’re looking for here.”

“Then what am I looking for ?” She exclaims, throwing her hands up, exasperated with herself. “Dirty agents ? How the hell am I supposed to find them if I can’t even access basic mission files or autopsy reports ?”

“You always found a way to bend the rules to your advantage,” he says, and there might be a little smile in the corner of his mouth. “You need to do that now if you wanna beat those people.”

“What are the chances they’re Hydra ?” She asks without really needing to, already defeated.

“Around 85 per cent.”

“Damn,” she sighs. “I was really hoping this would be a one and done.”

She closes her eyes, rubs her temples.

“I’m already over this,” she grumbles before looking at him again. “They’re Hydra, nice, what do we do about that ?”

“Oh, it’s a we situation now ?”

The question is joined by a crook of his eyebrow, but it’s not teasing like she would prefer it to be, it’s just….Factual. A question.

She hates it.

“I mean. You’re kind of the one who…”

“If you say this is my fault…”

“Who helped me first,” she finishes, hand coming down flat on the table. “Jeez, seriously ?”

His shrug is too flippant to be honest, so they let the silence install around them like a bubble. While her leg jumps up and down and her fingers drum against the keyboard or the table, her ex-SO doesn’t make one aimless move. She’d believe him frozen were his eyes not running across the pages.

Skye has always admired Ward’s ability to stay still.

For as long as she can remember, her entire life has been about moving, from family to family, from foster home to foster home; she has travelled without planting any roots, not staying in a place long enough for it to matter. Shield is the first true home and family she has, and so now she moves for them, scouting across the Earth.

But Ward ?

While she was jittery, exuberant, trying to exude all the energy that ran through her, he was ordered and calm and every movement had a point and a purpose. Even in precarious situations, he kept on analyzing and devising the better way out, entire body unmoving until it was time to launch it into motion. He never let himself get distracted, and maybe that should’ve tipped her off.

Now, she wonders if it’s just one more thing that was beaten into him. Be still or get a kick to the stomach, a cigarette to the skin, a trip down the well; be still or a bullet ends up in your skull or the blood of everything held dear to you stains your hands.

Be still or lose.

She supposes he moved, with them. Too quick to notice, like lightning, just a flash before their eyes. Yet not quick enough.

It’s that thought that leads her to answer out of the blue his not-so-clear question from before.

“Puerto Rico was a shitshow,” she mutters, and his eyes snap up to her like he can’t help himself. She keeps staring at her computer, heart in her throat at the memory of four shots, of her father leaving her tied up, of Trip’s face and the untamable quakes that destroyed the whole building. Her fingers shake, and nowadays, she can’t decipher if it’s just a natural sign of weakness, or her powers trying to overcome her will. “If we can avoid talking about it, I’d rather.”

“Your parents ?”

“Among other things,” she allows.

After a second of silence, he calmly asserts :

“Fear makes people cruel.”

“Are you talking about me ?”

He bites the inside of his cheek, more pensive than anything else, and suddenly she wonders if he could ever kill her. It would be better to believe the thought surged out of nowhere, but she knows it has been there every time they met since she found out about Hydra.

“I don’t think you could ever be cruel, Skye.”

“I guess we’ll have to disagree on that one,” she mumbles. It’s in her blood, after all. “Not that it matters much.”

“It matters. Especially in our line of work. Makes all the difference.”

Unsure if she agrees, she doesn’t answer. After everything that happened, she is getting kind of sick of her world’s foundations being shaken.

They just need to get through this investigation and then, she thinks, all will go back to normal.

An hour later has her stifling a yawn in her elbow, eye sockets heavy.

Exhaustion from the morning is starting to make her head fall forward when her eyes catch on something and she finally perks up.

“Ward.”

She turns her computer, almost spills his coffee that is only saved by his quick reflexes, and ignores his glare to point at the screen for the umpteenth time this day.

“Look at the third and seventh names.”

He does, the list of the shipment’s crew spread before him.

“Shield agents on a government’s weapons shipment. They screwed everyone over,” he realizes. “Faked robbery, faked deaths. We need to find those two, if they’re still alive, and then we can really find out some shit.”

She nods, stomach grumbling. A quick look at her watch makes her jump to her feet in a panic and as she hastily puts her things away, Ward arches a brow.

“I need to go,” she simply says as an explanation. She can’t exactly go into detail about the regime change and the Inhumans’ search, so she just readjusts her jacket and grabs the near-empty cup of coffee. “I’ll keep on looking for anything I can get my hands on, but I can’t promise you I’ll be able to access the reports we need.”

Though he nods, she feels like he’s a bit distant, eyes careful on her.

“Here,” he eventually ads, right as she’s about to turn around. “If you find something…”

He slides a piece of paper towards her, across which is scribbled a number. She wants to laugh, just because, but simply tilts her head to the side.

“I called _you_ , remember ?”

“Changed my phone.”

“Already ?”

“Now that you’re safe and sound in Shield’s confines, I don’t trust Coulson for one second. To be honest, I’m surprised he hasn’t put you under lock and key.”

Can she blame him for that ? She kinda wants to. But he’s offering her his number which says…. A lot. A whole fucking lot. It speaks of a wish to keep contact and the quiet assurance that, were trouble arising, he would be there.

And vice-versa.

Maybe they’ve already come a long way, after all.

“Ok.”

For some goddamn reason, she hesitates, stealing a glance at him.

But she’s got responsibilities, a target she can’t shake off her back, and she can’t dwell on absent apologies and building trust when there’s so much to figure out, so after another meaningless nod, she turns on her heels.

When she crosses the door, she doesn’t look back.

As she expected, Coulson has been looking for her.

It’s a good thing she’s got plastic bags to fortify her alibi.

“Sk-Daisy, where were you ?”

“Grabbed some lunch,” she lies with only a little pinch of guilt

“We have a cafeteria, why…”

“I spent three days locked in an hotel room with Ward, I could use the fresh air.”

“I’ll have to admit, neither of you are dead. That’s a surprise.”

“I aim to please.”

“Gonzales wants to see you.”

“Me ?”

“We might or might not have told him you were ambushed, and had to go dark. So, no matter what, don’t tell him about Puerto Rico, or Ward. We don’t know what his policy towards Inhumans is yet, and I can’t say I trust his benevolent act.”

“Yeah,” she dumbly agrees. She can’t well say that she’s been meeting with him now, can she.

Revealing that he knows about her powers doesn’t seem like the right move, so she simply blurts out an excuse to go and get the thing with Gonzalez over with. Just before she turns the corner though, Coulson calls her back.

“Yeah ?”

His smile is the easiest thing she’s seen this week.

“I don’t want to lose track of you again, so take pity on me and warn me next time you go out, yeah ?”

“Will do, dad,” she teases with a roll of her eyes.

“And get a new phone.”

“Oh, I already took one from our stock.”

And maybe she went rummaging through Coulson’s phone to get Ward’s number.

Maybe. There’s no evidence anyway, cause she’s good at what she does.

“Good. Now go, he’s waiting for you.”

Indeed, he is waiting for her when she knocks on the open door. Sat behind the desk like at home, Gonzalez has paradoxically everything of a Shield’s director and none of it. The fleeting image of a benevolent grandpa crosses her mind when he looks up at her, little glasses perched on his nose, brown eyes calculating, white mustache tickling his upper lip. His welcoming smile makes him even friendlier, but this line of work has taught her to not trust appearances.

Besides, this man took over her home.

“Agent Johnson. Please, take a sit.”

She never used to wait for permission. It pains her, and makes resentment rise in her throat, to see the desk she would put her feet on sometimes- before AC pushed them off- in control of a stranger.

She sits anyway, paper bags still in hand, the smell of her lunch wafting in her nose and reminding her stomach that it’s empty.

Gonzalez smiles, and she cannot find any sincerity in it.

“Chinese ?” He asks out of nowhere with a jerk of the chin to her food.

“Indian.”

“Ah, very good choice. I personally have troubles with spicy food, delicate palate, you see ?”

“You didn’t ask me here to talk about culinary habits, did you ?”

“No, I did not,” he grants.

Crossing his hands before him, he captures her gaze and doesn’t let it go when he says :

“It seems you hit a bit of trouble in the last days, agent Johnson. I would like to know what that trouble was.”

“I was attacked,” she concedes, having already made a mental check of what she can and cannot reveal to him. “Someone must have communicated my location. You should probably check your ranks.”

“Maybe I will. It would be a pity not to learn from colleagues’ mistakes. After all, yours have a history with betrayal.”

That stings.

She clenches her teeth.

“I didn’t have a chance to ask who they were, they began shooting right away. I got out of the safe house, ran.”

“Ran ?”

“Yes.”

“To where ?”

“A hotel.”

“That’s a long distance to run.”

“My SO is very good at it,” Skye smiles affably, “and she insists I be as good. I ran to a car, though, not all the way to the hotel. Then I drove.”

“Why were they attacking you ?”

“Didn’t have the time to ask.”

“And there is no reason for you to be their target ? None at all ?”

So. Maybe Bobbi and Mack didn’t tell him about her powers. That might be the best news she’s gotten today.

“None, other than my being Shield.”

He stares at her for so long she thinks he’s going to call her out on it, but he eventually draws his eye away from her.

“Alright. Thank you agent. You’re free to go.”

“That’s it ?” She can’t help.

“Unless you’d like to talk about something else, yes.”

“What about what happened here ?”

He arches an eyebrow at her and somehow makes it look like polite curiosity.

“You took over our base. You took Coulson’s place, his entire work, you…”

“Coulson is not Shield, agent Johnson,” Gonzalez interrupts her in a calm tone. “He took it upon himself to carry out its duties and shoulder its responsibilities, when it was not his place.”

“But it’s yours ?” She inquires sharply, unable to push the anger down at the flippant way he brushes Coulson’s entire life work aside like all of it was a simple whim.

“We had a vote. We currently have a counsel,” he continues, and it may be her imagination, but his voice seems colder now. “Coulson held all the power, while he never was anything more than a field agent. There are some rules to this, agent. And a man taking power on his own with no regard for those rules or for democracy is a dictator.”

That doesn’t seem worthy of a response on her part, so she prefers to derail the conversation.

“Where were you, then, when Hydra took over ? When Whitehall went to Puerto Rico ?”

“It might surprise you, agent Johnson, but we had matters to handle elsewhere. Hydra’s work is multi-scalar and quite worrying, as it is.”

She knows where this is going, so she does not flee his gaze and waits for the next sentence.

“Inhumans appear to strengthen their ranks and broaden the risks Hydra represents. That is unacceptable. Which is why we launched the operations we did, and are currently looking for the powered ones.”

“So what ? You’re hunting them ?”

Gonzalez assesses her curiously, his little eyes gleaming behind his small glasses. It feels like being under study, the urge to fidget being almost too grand to resist.

“We are simply helping them reach their full potential, as benefactors for the world and not a new threat to be dealt with.”

“And you do ? Deal with the threat ?”

She knows he understands her meaning, because he frowns at her before leaning back in his seat.

“The ones that refuse to come forth or come with represent a danger, agent Johnson. If Hydra, or any other ill-intentioned agency, puts their hands on them, we can’t say what they’ll do.”

“The lesser evil,” she mutters, not satisfied with his answer.

“You may go, Agent Johnson. After the couple of days you just had, you should get some rest before your next assignment.”

“I’m not on the bench ?” She asks, almost provocative which she realizes is not very smart just as she says it.

He doesn’t look back at her when he answers :

“Not yet.”

Getting up, Skye grabs the Indian food and spares a last glance at the new director of Shield; his face gives nothing away.

Leaving the room feels like saying goodbye to an era.

At least the break-room hasn’t changed much, she thinks, eyes bouncing on the four walls and the small details that catch her attention as her food warms in the microwave.

But damn, she missed this place, and the feeling that comes with it. And when her friend enters the room, she can almost pretend everything is normal.

“Hey Hunter,” she grins.

His eyebrows are raised to his hairline, and his collar is drenched in sweat. As disgusting as he smells, that’s a familiar sight, almost as familiar as Fitz bent over his microscope.

“It’s been some time, agent.”

She smiles wider as he opens the fridge and grabs a beer, then lets himself fall heavily into the couch.

“There’s been some rumors going round,” he begins with a glance before taking a sip. “Wanna tell me about it ?”

She shrugs.

“Not really.”

“Thank God,” he sighs, “I’m terrible at advice.”

“I would _never_ come to you for advice, I can promise you that.”

“Smart move,” he nods, tilting his bottle in her direction.

“So…. Wanna tell me about Bobbi ?”

Hunter snorts, but there’s no amusement in it, and Skye feels bad.

“What is there to tell ? Once again, I trusted her, once again, it bit me in the ass.”

“Wanna tell me about Mac ?”

“His hair is full of secrets.”

Huffing, Skye grabs her lunch and a fork, makes her way to him, and pushes his legs off the couch so she can sit. Instantly, she frowns.

“Did you change the couch ?”

“Gonzalame did.”

“Not even the heart to make jokes anymore, you fell back on puns ?”

Hunter shrugs, fingers too tight around the bottleneck and eyes driving a hole through the opposite wall.

Her voice gets softer.

“How is it going with them, really ?”

“I think Mac and Fitz are on speaking terms. Jemma glares at them whenever they cross path, which is intimidating to watch.”

Her stomach clenches, so she takes a bite to stuff it with food. She hasn’t seen them yet, isn’t sure she wants to, all things considered. Ward’s warning is still fresh in her mind, and the fact that he was right about them makes her wonder if he was right about the safe-house, too. If Bobbi truly gave it up, either to Shield or to Hydra.

Wouldn’t be the first time now, would it ?

Electing to chase that thought for temporary peace of mind, Skye takes another bite of her Chicken Tikka and allows herself to sit back in the couch.

“You ok ?”

She lets out a sigh, heavier than she expected, and without opening her eyes gives him a frail “yeah”.

“You wanna get drunk ?”

“That’s your answer to all the shit that’s going on ?”

“Shitty times call for shitty solutions.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t afford to get drunk right now. I think Gonzalez has his eye on me.”

“No shit. You’re one of Coulson’s and you disappeared for multiple days right as he arrived, before coming back here like nothing happened.”

“You’re one of Coulson’s, too,” she accuses in order to ignore the rest of his sentence.

“I got Bobbi vouching for me, if doing nothing else,” he grumbles, and she hears his bottle thumping on the table when he puts it down.

“Mmmh,” she hums around her fork. She swallows before replying : “I don’t know what’s gonna happen next.”

“Welcome to the club.”

“Do you think we’ll still be able to work together as a team ?” She murmurs, afraid that saying it out loud would doom her wish.

“I don’t know.”

Hunter says something else, but she’s already fallen asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading, and for the support I've gotten to continue this fic; please don't forget to comment, it's the writer's food, and please take care of yourselves. I hope this bought you a few minutes of distraction in these trying times, thanks again for reading.


	10. We wear red so they don't see us bleed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know.  
> I'm sorry.  
> Longer than usual, I hope it makes the wait worth it !

Her first mission back on the field comes a few days after her talk with Gonzalez.

Unsurprisingly, she’s not paired with any of Coulson’s team. Even the scientists are different, because FitzSimmons are the best and are needed for important missions. Hers is…. not.

Hers is a damn insult, that’s what it is. A basic extraction jig to an asshole politician that will probably be on the phone during the whole thing.

It appears Shield needs their ends to meet as well as anyone else.

But the mission is in two days, so Skye doesn’t really have anything to do in the meantime, which annoys her even more. FitzSimmons are always running around, always assigned to some mission or another, Hunter was sent into the field with Bobbi (he ranted to her for thirty minutes the night before he left) which she doesn’t envy at all, and the duo May-Coulson has gone in the field accompanied by another team to check intel on Hydra.

So. She is left to her own devices, and Skye is absolutely not used to having nothing to do. But the fact that she can’t find the autopsy reports or the mission reports without authorization remains, and after the talk with Gonzalez, she figures it’s smarter to lay low.

That, she is used to.

Skye hasn’t received anything from Ward, and it’s… weird. Unsettling, more like, after being in his presence for such a long time, and she doesn’t want to think about it. The problem is, her brain has never been cooperative when it comes to waiting. It turns on itself. 

And so she thinks about it.

Training seems like the good alternative, except she has no one to train with, so sweating to exhaustion it is.

Maybe that’s why the urge of throwing punches has finally left her when she enters her room, or maybe that has to do with the shower that calmed her nerves.

In any case, her phone taunts her the entire time she’s dressing. It would just be so simple to take it and research the names they found once more, so simple to do literally anything else than ignoring it.

Just as she’s wondering if she should call Ward, there are knocks on the door. She slips her phone in her pocket like to hide her guilt, and goes to open it.

“Mack,” she greets.

“Hey.”

“You can come in, I don’t bite.”

“We both know that’s not true,” he replies, but steps in.

Mack in her little room is almost laughable, as it makes it look that much smaller. She arches an eyebrow at him, her phone burning a hole in her pocket. God knows what’d happen if they knew she was in contact with Ward.

“What is it ?”

“Gonzalez asked me to give you the last update on your security detail.”

“Ah.”

“Look, Daisy, I…”

“I’m not sure I’m the right person to hear whatever you’re about to say,” she admits, though not unkindly.

The betrayal is still fresh, the realization that they wore masks the whole time and didn’t even trust them enough to tell them there was another Shield. She doesn’t know what they would’ve done, but they wouldn’t have launched a goddamn attack or invasion, or whatever Gonzalez did.

“Yeah,” he sighs deeply, “maybe not.”

Silence settles in the small room, and Skye bites her cheek to avoid asking if they told Gonzalez everything about her, about her powers and her lineage and if they had to consider terminating her.

She already knows the answer to the last question, at least.

“So, the last update ?” She asks, feeling merciful and still a lot awkward.

“Oh, it’s just the meeting point that changed last minute. Here.”

He hands her the thinest file she’s ever seen, and she takes it without an answer. She looks at him for a second, hesitating between bidding him goodnight and asking how he’s been. The circles under his eyes speak loudly enough.

“In your team,” Mack suddenly says as if continuing a conversation, “there is a woman, and… I think it’ll be good, for you both.”

Skye cocks an eyebrow at him, hand tightening on the file.

“Why ?”

“We made real progress during your absence,” Mack informs her hesitantly, still fidgeting on his feet. “And we found a lot of people with your… Abilities.”

“Inhumans ?”

“Yes.”

“And this woman, she…. She’s like me ?”

Her voice drops down a notch, a part of herself afraid they’d be heard and that a team would barge into the room to drag her in a containment pod.

Her fingers shake.

“Yeah.”

“What’s her name ?”

Mack smiles for the first time. It’s a ray of sun in the grey mist that has been thickening since she came back.

“Why don’t you go and ask her yourself ?”

The woman is petite, but her height doesn’t make her any less terrifying. Her features aren’t exactly forthcoming, and from a distance Skye can still notice the set of her jaw and the gritting of her teeth, and her immobility makes it all the more intimidating. This is a woman who isn’t afraid to throw a punch or to snap someone’s neck.

 _My kind of woman_ , Skye muses.

She watches her approach, quick and efficient, a no-bullshit walk, and stick out her hand in front of her.

“Hi.” Her voice is husky, her words heavy with a latino accent, but soft. “I’m Elena, but they call me Yo-Yo.”

“I’m Sk… Daisy.”

While she shakes her hand, Elena arches an unimpressed eyebrow, lips pulled up just a bit to contradict the severity of her features.

“Which one is it ?”

“I’m… Not sure.”

“You don’t have time to be unsure. Don’t be as slow as Turtle-man over there,” she smirks with a jerk of her head towards Mack. This last rolls his eyes.

“We can’t all have super-speed.”

“Oh my God, super-speed ? That’s so cool,” Skye exclaims, unable to disguise her enthusiasm.

Fortunately for her, the pilot announces the takeoff, so she doesn’t have time to embarrass herself. Mack leaves the jet with a nod in Elena’s direction, met with a smirk Skye will come to see as her signature. She buckles down next to the latino, who gives her a curious once over.

There are three other agents on the opposite row, but they’re talking between them and don’t pay the two women any attention.

Elena takes advantage of that, leaning slightly towards her to ask without notice.

“You’re like me, uh ?”

Skye takes a glances around, careful of some wandering ears, and nods. After a second of hesitation, she adds anxiously.

“But I’m not… I’m not sure the new director knows, so if…”

“I’ll shut up about it. This Shield _parece ser un lío_ ,” she mumbles under her breath, turning way with a shake of her head and even though Skye doesn’t speak Spanish, she can sense the judgement.

Well. It’s not like they don’t deserve it.

“Then how do you do on missions ?”

“What do you mean ?”

Elena rolls her eyes but it seems well-meaning.

“You work on the field, yes ?”

“Yeah.”

“Then how do you do with your powers ?”

Skye realizes she hasn’t even really thought about it. She knew she couldn’t show them in the daylight, of course, considering the risk it represents with Gonzalez. Even though Elena’s presence within Shield reassures her a lot, she can’t take the chance until she’s sure. It would be putting herself at risk, but also her entire team, who has kept it a secret until now.

Anyway, it’s not like she had the hang of it before, so it won’t be much of a loss.

“I don’t use them, I guess.”

“You don’t use them ?” The speedster repeats, incredulous.

“I don’t know how to.”

“Then what do you do with it ?”

“Nothing for now. I’m not even sure…. I’m not even sure I’m going to ever use them, I…”

Her parents’ powers are still a shadow over her.

If she has anything to say about it, she won’t follow down their paths. But she might not have a voice if Gonzalez suddenly decides she is not worth the risk, or that she needs to be contained.

The fear her powers inspire her is just a variable in the equation, and as she thinks about them now, about the way the earth shattered around her in Puerto Rico, she can feel a wave rising up, up, up, waiting for her to drown.

She pushes it down desperately.

“Don’t you ever wish that you could just suppress it ?”

“It’s in my blood. It’s a part of me, and getting rid of it would… It would kill me. Don’t you feel the same ?”

“I… Yeah. I suppose I do, but I’m…I’m just scared of what it can do if I can’t control it.”

“Fear is a motivator, it helps focus better. You should not be afraid of fear,” Elena says with a coy smile, like she’s laughing at her or with her. “It is stupid to not use your powers just in fear of what they could do.”

Before Skye can answer, or even think about it, the pilot announces they’ve reached their destination and Elena turns away from her.

To her utter delight, Skye gets paired up with Elena for a few more missions, and they always go smoothly. More than that, field work with Yo-Yo is… fun.

She has never met someone who simply enjoys their powers as much as Elena does. This lastalways gets a smile on her face when she bumps back in place, is always playing with the space like it’s her own playground. Unshackled, her power is a force to reckon with, as well as an incredible asset, and she perfectly masters its intricacies.

It’s refreshing to watch.

Gonzalez doesn’t reach out to her -not that she’s complaining- but the waiting is making her go a bit crazy in the confines of the base. She has barely seen Coulson, seen May twice on the way to the training rooms, but they seem to be kept at a safe distance from her. Each time she has the opportunity to ask about their whereabouts, they’re on a mission. As far as techniques of separation go, it’s very obvious. But it’s efficient.

Even Simmons is always running around, dark circles stretching under her eyes, eyebrows constantly pulled into a frown. The only one Skye manages to catch between a mission and the other is Fitz.

“It’s because I’m not really a threat anymore,” he tells her without looking up when she shares her thoughts with him.

The urge to ask _“what do you mean”_ is strong, but she knows he hasn’t been the same since the pod. Hasn’t been the same when Simmons was away, and not even since she came back.

It makes rage boil within her, that Gonzalez would just declare him unfit for field missions but wouldn’t provide professional help. Instead, Fitz is locked down in his lab, working himself to the bone behind the front lines, separate from his other half.

“We both know you’re a threat no matter what,” she says instead of everything else she wants to say. Fitz snorts, glances at her with a small smirk.

“He doesn’t know that.”

The more she talks with Fitz, the more she understands how much change Gonzalez has brought into Shield. Some is good -Elena Rodriguez- some is bad, but in the end, Coulson doesn’t trust him which means Skye doesn’t either. Besides, she’s not about to trust anyone in Shield so soon after Bobbi and Mack.

“Simmons deserved the promotion,” he assures her “but it means we don’t work together and….”

“And ?”

“I miss her.”

Like always, Skye is taken aback by how genuine Fitz is, how unafraid he is of telling the truth.

Having kept her secrets and feelings close to her chest for years with good reason, Skye can’t fathom how easily it comes to Fitz to just… admit what he’s feeling. She admires that a lot.

“Beside that, how… how are you two ?”

“We’ve been better,” he mutters.

Five seconds pass. Ten. Fitz sighs deeply, looks at his hands. 

“We don’t really… see eye to eye on certain things.”

“Things like ?”

“Gonzalez. Ward.” After a moment of hesitation, he adds. “Inhumans.”

“Ah. This type of things.”

“Every time we talk, it’s like… Like we’re out of sync. Our whole lives we’ve found common ground in work, in science, but now that everything has changed, I’m… Hell,” he suddenly breathes out, heavy with regret. “I’m not sure where we’re at. I’m not even sure there’s a we.”

“Of course there is.”

“Even if there was, she doesn’t… I don’t _know_.”

“If it doesn’t hurt, it’s not worth fighting for,” Skye points out before smiling sadly. That’s the sad truth of their job, of the carefully bonded relationships within the agency; they can bring you down and crush you to dust.

Fitz seems on the verge of crying when she says that, and she desperately wants to comfort him but there’s nothing to add. He and Simmons are destined to be together, no matter how much heartbreak they have to go through first. That’s probably the one thing Skye doesn’t have any doubt about.

Spending so much time with Fitz allows her to cling to that thin thread of familiarity that’s left after the storm. Even if Mack seeks her out more and more, especially upon return from a mission when she’s marching into the base with Elena at her side.

There’s something between them two that makes her heart clench, in grief or envy she doesn’t know. The easy banter makes her feel left out -in a good way- and makes her long for something else for herself. Now, as she walks from her room to the Quin-jet with a bag slung over her shoulder, she thinks about what she told Fitz. She meant it, of course, but that’s because she was raised like that. Simmons jumps her as she’s turning a corner, gripping her wrist with biting nails and pulling her to the side.

“Simmons !” She yelps despite the pure joy that rises when seeing her face, “what the hell ?”

“Sorry ! I have something to give you,” she blurts out as she produces from God knows where a thick armband. Skye wants to hug her, just to feel like they’re back to being best friends, but she settles for watching the object curiously.

“What is it ?”

“Oh, it’s a simple monitoring bracelet,” Simmons says, ignoring her raised eyebrow at “simple”. The thing seems to be made of metal, harboring intricate patterns all over it. There are probably dozens of captors in the lines, and when Skye touches it a wave of cold hits her like a truck.

Simmons doesn’t notice.

“This is a smaller, and far less conspicuous, version of your arm braces. The gauntlets were too obvious, so I had them…”

“But I haven’t been wearing the gauntlets for a while.”

“Yes, and look what happened. I don’t know how to help you if you keep letting it out of your control. You need to be monitored.”

“So that I don’t hurt anyone ?”

“It’s not like that, Daisy. It’s more about surveying your powers. We need data if we want to understand those things.”

Trying to avoid the hurt is a way to live, but she was taught to embrace it on rare occasions. She does not embrace it now, with Simmons’ pinched face, with her honest worry and palpable fear.

Throwing up seems like a better alternative.

Plastering a smile on her face that feels like it’s tearing her lips apart, Skye pockets the device and steps back.

“I gotta go.”

“Oh, alright,” the scientist nods, seemingly disappointed. “Come see me when you get back.”

“Will do.”

The hallway seems to stretch on and on as she walks, something unsettling coiling in her chest like a thorn, and she has to force her steps to be small and sufficiently natural.

But the urge to run from Simmons, from Mack, from Gonzalez, from this place, doesn’t disappear.

“So.”

In one swift movement, Skye puts the bracelet back in her pocket and turns towards Elena’s coy smile. She always looks like that, Skye thinks, like she just gambled against the world and won.

She probably did.

Which makes her glad they’re once again paired together. On the verge of breaking into a Hydra facility, it’s comforting to say the least.

“Did Mack tell you ?”

“You finally went on a date ?”

She rolls her eyes, fingers playing with the holster she just clasped on her thigh. Beside that first time they met, Skye has noticed Elena is never utterly still, her power quivering under her skin, making her shift and fidget constantly, waiting for the moment it can finally be set free.

“No. He’s keeping things _“professional”,_ ” she snorts. The notion sounds estranged in her mouth and Skye gives her a look.

“There’s nothing professional about your sexual innuendos.”

“There wouldn’t be innuendos if he did something.”

“Good luck with that.”

“I was talking about the mission.”

“Which one ?”

Elena rolls her eyes again, and Skye almost does the same, but settles on checking the magazine of her gun. There is an Icer at her hip, another gun at her thigh, and a knife at her ankle. What can she say ? She learned from the best. 

“This one.”

Skye blinks at the latina, putting her words and the information she already has together.

“We are about to walk into a Hydra base and he omitted information ?”

“ _Tonto_ probably thought it’d be _unprofessional_ ,” she mocks while miming air quotes, waving her gun in the air without care. “Apparently this base is linked to the people who attacked you or something.”

“What ?”

Is this a joke ? They’re standing at the back entry, waiting for the signal from the first team to set off the explosives, waltz in and bring in as many Hydra supporters as they can, and Mack is withholding information from her about something so important ?

“How could he not tell me ?” She hisses through her teeth, nails biting in her palm.

“Maybe he didn’t want the word to spread. Or he thought you wouldn’t go in objectively.”

She’s ready to kick the giant’s ass right now, new truce be damned, and she intends to give him an earful as soon as they get back.

“ _Ready for entry ?_ ”

The question shots through her earpiece like lightning. Elena gives her a glance, before announcing :

“Team 2, ready.”

_“Team 3, ready.”_

_“At my signal.”_

Her grip is tight on her gun, so tight she feels the handle shake beneath her rage.

Right now, it feels impossible to squash the anger down and keep a cool head.

And yet, when a bomb erupts right above their heads, she immediately goes back to being Agent Johnson, trainee under the Cavalry.

“Explosion on second floor, Team 2 going in.”

Elena nods at her, and then Skye blows the hinges. The door falls down before them with a loud bang.

One guard running towards them, down in two punches. They advance through the hallway, guns raised before them, trying to ignore the shrill cries of the alarm. Thankfully, the smoke from the explosion hasn’t reached the ground floor yet.

Yo-Yo goes ahead in recon before jumping back in place.

“Two agents, took care of them.”

Indeed, the two men are unconscious on the ground when they pass them, and they arrive at the door under a few minutes.

“Where did the bomb come from ?”

Elena shrugs, opening the door to the stairs for her to step through.

“If they target Hydra, who cares ?”

They reach the first floor without another encounter, the alarm still ringing throughout the building.

Considering the hallway separates in two different directions, they decide to split up. Elena goes left, and Skye gives her a mock salute before heading right.

Two minutes later, she stumbles face to face with Ward, his gun in her face and hers in his.

“What are you doing here ?” They exclaim at the same time, eyes comically wide.

“I’m following a lead,” Ward answers, lowering his gun.

She can’t quite believe he’s here, looking perfectly professional despite his casual shirt, leather jacket, and jeans. The weapons don’t leave much to the imagination concerning his business here.

“Same here.”

“Alone ?”

She glares at him.

“Do you think me so dumb ?”

It would’ve been great if Yo-yo came back at this moment so she could watch the look on his face, but hey, Skye won’t give way to disappointment.

“Did you set off the bomb ?”

“Yeah.”

She bites the inside of her cheek to hide her grin. Guns finding back their rightful place in their palms, they silently agree to turn around to go back the way she came from, walking in tandem like they’ve worked together their whole lives.

“Why did you put a bomb here ?”

“I needed a distraction.”

“For ?”

Right then, her comms crackle to life, speaking in her ear _“Team 1 on the second floor, multiple agents coming down to the first.”_

“Ok, so, don’t freak out,” Skye starts slowly, which immediately puts him on high alert.

“What did you do ?”

Skye cringes, eyeing the finger he has on the trigger, and then the empty corridor which will soon be filled with Hydra and Shield agents alike.

“Well I kinda maybe called it in ?”

“What ?”

“I’m sorry !” She exclaims as he looks around. “You weren’t supposed to be here, I thought you were done with this mess !”

“Well they’re still coming after you, aren’t they !”

“I didn’t think it would matter to you !”

Seemingly on the verge of answering, he decides against it and just shakes his head.

“I need to go right now.”

“Wait…”

“I can’t kill any of Shield now, can I ?”

“Well, no.” She says sounding like _duh_.

There are two teams they need to worry about, and it puts her on edge more than she’d like to admit. On top of, you know, _not dying_ , she has to keep in mind that Shield team can’t see Ward’s face, can’t know of his presence and certainly not of their relation, otherwise she’s in deep shit.

“Ok, we’re using my point of entry. Let’s hope it’s not already blocked by Hydra.”

Without any objection, Ward gestures for her to go ahead, glancing behind them to check if there’s any intruder. When he looks back, they make their way forward slowly, both on edge.

As they round the last corner, Skye allows herself to breathe out in relief. Her hand is wrenching the door to the stairs open before she can even think. A startled man stares back at her.

The reflex to kick his leg is what saves her life; the bullet whistles in her ear, missing her head by a few inches.

Ward shoots twice, landing both shots, yanks her backwards. They barely have time to take cover behind the wall before waves of bullets come crashing down.

“So, slight contretemps,” she begins with a grimace. A bullet grazes the wall. “They found us.”

“Motherf….”

She really would’ve liked to hear him lose his cool and swear, but he pops out to fire and an insanely lucky bullet buries itself in his side, and really, could he stop getting hurt for her for five minutes ?

“Ward !”

Skye puts her head out, focus narrowing down on the shooter, and aims for his thigh, before shooting three times randomly. Afterwards, she leans over Ward who’s resting his weight against the wall with a hand pressing on the wound.

“You ok ?”

“Peachy,” he groans while she changes her magazine.

“We need to-”

The bullets stop flying. Before she even has the chance to pass her head around the corner, she hears :

“Johnson ?”

She whirls around, barely manages to step between the two guns raised in the air.

“No !” She hisses at Ward, who gives her a look she ignores in favor of turning to Elena. Her face is so intimidating she’s glad not to be on her bad side.

Quickly, she goes over the situation in her mind.

One team after them, one team that can’t know what she’s doing or where she is. The point of entry must be clear by now, and considering it’s hers and Elena’s access route, it’s going to stay that way.

Unless the speedster decides she has kept enough secrets for her.

Ward has a bullet in his abdomen. Skye realizes there’s no way in hell she’s letting him handle this on his own. That’s the main element sticking out to her, and the one thing that spurs her to turn to Elena and say, a bit helpless.

“I…. They can’t find us. Please.”

It takes a split second, and then understanding downs on Elena’s features.

“Go. I’ll cover for you.”

She throws her the tracker they keep on them, which the woman catches midair, and then she takes off with Ward behind her. Once again, she’s impressed by how easily he moves, walks down the steps, like he doesn’t have a wound in his stomach. Once again, she vaguely wonders how many times he has had to fight his way out on his own.

On the last step, though, he stumbles. In an instant, she’s by his side, tucking herself under his arm.

“Don’t worry about that,” he grumbles, gun hot against her shoulder where his hand lays, “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, right. Come on.”

Taking care of Ward is not something she’s familiar with; while the drunken episode at the hotel felt like an accident in a dream, this, right here, feels far more real. It is anchored in her life, work and personal, and she’s not sure she’s ready to have this part of her, the one that cares for him even though everyone tells it not to, out into the open.

Through the comms, she hears Elena say “Agent Rodriguez and Johnson in pursuit of assailants”, and is incredibly grateful for the woman.

Once they make it outside, Grant guides her to his means of transportation, which is actually-

“Seriously ?”

The headlights of the Yamaha YZF-R1M stare back at her in mockery, and Skye has to hiss :

“How are you going to stay upright on a motorcycle ?”

“You can drive,” he groans, holstering his gun and shoving his bag in the trunk painfully.

“I don’t know how to drive that thing !”

“Then I’m gonna drive it !” He exclaims, hand stained with blood rendering his words doubtful, and Skye barely restrains throwing hands.

“Ok. Ok, get on.”

She resists offering help when she see him wince while passing his leg over the seat. Once she’s seated behind him, an idea comes to mind.

“Can I… Can I wrap my arms around you ?”

It sounds so stupid when said out loud, so childish. And a bit too romantic as well, which makes her mull over it for the long, long time it takes for his answer to come.

“Alright.”

Carefully, lest he changes his mind, Skye passes both arms around his waist so that her right hand can press down on the bleeding wound in the left side of his stomach.

He hisses, earning a muttered _sorry_ , but other than that nothing.

That’s good, too, because once the motor roars beneath her, there’s nothing to focus on except the wind on her face and Grant’s body beneath her cheek.

The proximity is new -or very old- and she allows herself, while he drives them out of here, to feel his breathing, the way his back muscles shift when he speeds up, the way his entire body leans into the turns of the road.

The smell of leather is softened by his scent, gasoline and cologne, and underneath it all the blood that keeps pouring on her hand.

Maybe she wants their next meeting not to be spent between bullets and blood.

Discreetly turning her head deeper into his back, Skye lets the wind chase the thought away.

She doesn’t know what went on in his head during the entire ride, but eventually they arrive at a building, and he parks in the back alley.

Getting off the motorcycle seems a tougher move than getting on, but the visible tension in his shoulders and the way he won’t meet her eye prevents her from rushing to his side. Instead, she shoulders his bag and follows his limping body in the brick building.

Another protest is on her tongue when she sees the fucking stairs -not even for him, but for her exhaustion too- but the look he throws her makes her swallow it back.

It’s long, to climb the steps with her eyes fixed on Ward’s bloody side, to watch the careful way he pushes on. She doesn’t like it.

Eventually, they reach the second floor, and Ward gestures for her to follow him.

Stepping through the doorway does not feel the same as entering the hotel rooms. It’s much more intimate once she realizes he’s voluntarily bringing her in his apartment, a show of trust she didn’t expect. Fighting their way out of a dangerous, possibly deadly situation is all good and well, but it’s extremely different to show her this part of himself.

Despite the blood running down his hip, she’s grateful.

“Bathroom ?”

“On your left, second door.”

She makes quick work of finding the emergency kit, and when she comes back to the main room, Ward is spread on the couch, breathing a bit labored.

She doesn’t like that either.

“You sure you want to bleed out on the couch ?”

“Easier to stitch up than in the bathroom.”

“Ok.”

She crouches down next to him, rummages through the kit in order to line up the necessary items.

“Do you make a habit of getting injured when I’m here ?”

“I aim to impress.”

“You’re right, bloody and wounded _is_ my type.”

Right when she thinks they’ve found their balance again, Ward’s eyes tear away from hers and once again something tugs painfully at her heartstrings. She just wishes things could go back to before everything, talk like they did in the Bus.

But when her fingers grip the hem of his shirt and start lifting it up, Ward stops her.

“It’s alright, I can do it.”

“Ward-”

“It’s fine, Skye, I…”

Her hand comes up to cover his bloody one gently, making him look up.

“Let me help you,” she whispers, holding his gaze, unwavering.

Grant seems breathless for a moment.

“Ok.”

She doesn’t waste any more time, peeling his shirt from the wound.

Even being used to gunshot wounds, it still makes her cringe, how much blood there is.

So she takes to cleaning the wound so she can actually see what she’s doing when she goes digging for the bullet, and tries to distract herself (and him).

“Did you ever... I don’t know,” she huffs, grabbing the clamps with her unoccupied hand, “study what Garrett did to you ?”

“Is this how you wanna do this then ?” He groans, letting his head fall backwards. “You get me unable to move and question me ?”

“I mean, you don’t have to answer, but…”

“It’s... I mean now, with hindsight, I know that it was an exigent regimen, based on whole obedience and a system of punishment and reward.”

“Punishment ? Why didn’t you...”

“He was my only contact to the world, Skye. You think I would ever jeopardize that ?”

There’s no right answer, and he’s not looking for one anyway, so it’s a good thing she has to start searching for the bullet. It feels like he stops breathing for a moment, so she asks :

“What is Kara like ?”

It takes him by surprise enough to get him looking at her, and answering suspiciously :

“Why do you ask ?”

“She seems great. I was just wondering.”

“She’s… very smart. Sharp, in her way of living and talking. She’s probably one of the strongest people I’ve ever met.”

“Did she recover from what Hydra did to her ?”

She pulls the bullet out right as he’s saying through labored breaths :

“Partly.”

The metal makes a _tink_ as she lowers it on the table, and she allows herself to look in his eyes right then, just to check.

They’re already on her.

“It’s always partly, isn’t it ?” He adds.

“I guess.”

It’s a mutter, a deflection. His gaze is too knowing, both because she’s carrying her share of ghosts and he knows what Kara went through, intimately.

Skye focuses on cleaning the wound again, and lets them fall into silence.

Her mind though, is all but silent.

The pristine look of the rightful agent has shed a long time ago, but she has to wonder now if it didn’t say something about him. About the dreams that were quenched before they were fleshed out.

She knows it wasn’t an act, had never been an act (when you went through enough betrayals and disappointment, you learned to read specific things on people’s faces and in their behaviors, such as the honesty of a smile or the flickering of pupils, the lingering looks and the shift in the body).

His affection -she doesn’t dare call it love- was quiet at first, and then far too loud, louder than words and louder than her hatred. On the other hand, his pain was always on the down-low, a little whisper no one cared enough to perceive.

Well, she cared, a while ago.

It’s just timing.

“Do you regret it ?”

The answer comes unshackled, cracking through the room and her heart like a whip.

“Of course.”

“Then why did you do it ?” She dares to ask, lower. She knows why he did it, logically, though she pretended not to for a while. But still, she’d like to hear him say it. She’d like him to tell her the team had became his family, that he was torn apart by the decision, that Fitz had became like a brother. She’d like to hear a lot of things from him, but she isn’t sure which would hurt more.

“We were… We were good, right ?” She adds as an afterthought, because she doesn’t dare say the word family considering all it entails for him, doesn’t dare say team or together or anything more eloquent than the simple notion of _good_.

Ward sighs, the movement making his abdominals shift and that’s the moment she notices her hands aren’t as steady as she thought.

She makes another stitch. Ignores his brown eyes on her face.

“It’s not the same, Skye. You look at them and you see your friends, a family, people to love and save. I look at them, and all I can wonder is how much longer before they die.”

Finishing the stitches, she gulps. It takes four tries before she can say in a voice that doesn’t quiver :

“That’s an awful way to live.”

“It isn’t a way to live, never was.”

The bullet stares at her from the table, his blood stenches her hands, she’s stitching his wound, and yet all she can think about is how he’s survived too much to settle for living like this.

She can’t look at him, because if she does he will recognize the way she does it, the way her pupils are no doubt a little glazed over by affection; he would figure it out, because that’s the way he used to look at her, in the darkness of a closet or on a couch in a secured location where they thought everything would magically work out and if it didn’t, well, they were a family, weren’t they ?

And she decides that maybe it’s enough now; maybe, with this odd partnership they’ve found, this reluctant admission of how they care about each other, she can talk about what has been stuck under her tongue for a while.

“I told you I was sorry that I shot you.”

The change of subject confuses him, she can see it, can feel it in the way he sits up a bit to be on more equal ground, but he doesn’t stop her.

“I don’t know if I’m sorry for not trusting you then.”

“Skye.”

“I trusted Miles. I trusted my father. I couldn’t afford to trust you once more,” she explains, and forces her gaze to meet his so he’ll get how genuine she is, yet he’s the one now avoiding her eyes. “But I hope you can find it in you to trust me again.”

“Skye.”

It’s a warning, a plea not to go down this road, but she has gotten good at not listening to him.

“You say you don’t wanna talk about it but your eyes won’t shut up,” she pries, trying to make him meet her gaze.

He doesn’t, but his lips part and his features take an almost desperate expression when he looks to the side, at the wall. It’s like now she has said it out loud, he won’t let her see anymore.

“You broke me, Skye.”

“You’re breaking me,” she confesses, her voice cracking on the words she doesn’t want to admit but has to, because he has to see, he has to understand this is not a one-way thing, that tension between them. The anguish and the pain and the tears all come from the fact that there is something deeply anchored linking them.

And she finally admits it. Presently, he’s breaking her.

With his refusal to look at her too long, with his lips ever turned downwards, with the sharpness of his words and the careful absence of his touch, he’s slowly breaking her (she always tries to find something from before in his features, something like the softness he used to gaze at her with, the amusement, anything. She never finds any of it, either because there isn’t, or because he has gotten better at hiding it.)

Each flicker of his features, each smile, each reaction she manages to get from him feels earned, like a damn victory.

“I don’t want to,” he replies, looking at her like she has just ripped him in half. If they were anyone else, she’d probably hug him, or he would cup her cheek and she wouldn’t be afraid to lean into the touch. But they’re standing on the edge of something dangerous, and touch is such an unstable variable.

In the silence, Ward breathes, and it’s a wonderful sound now, after the shooting, after stitching him up. His breathing, so close to her, in this room where she can pretend they never left Providence, or that everything that happened didn’t break them beyond repair, is a wonderful thing.

The blood on her hands is starting to dry, but she can’t tear her eyes away from his. That’s why she sees it, the shadow of something ancient passing when he admits :

“I’m so tired of hurting you.”

They’ve been honest with each other; they’ve been talking and even, dare she say, open. But they’ve never actually been vulnerable. Except when she assured him he was a good man and his eyes held so much disbelief and love, except when she screamed at him at the top of her lungs and could almost see the poison spit in his veins.

Those are not good memories.

Vulnerability now comes as a sort of freedom, something she chooses and allows herself to be.

It’s not tears and screams or even reassurances.

It’s just... trust.

That feels really, really good.

And kind of groundbreaking.

“Then let’s stop.”

“I’m not sure I know how to do that,” he says quietly, like he’s ashamed, like his blood on her hands is something he’s used to considering that’s all he’s ever known. Hurt was the thing binding him to his parents, to his brothers, to his mentor. Hurt was the constant in his life, and although she likes to think it isn’t anymore, she can’t be sure.

After all, isn’t hurt the thing that drew them together then apart ? Isn’t it the core of his relationship with Kara ?

Maybe they can change this.

“I don’t either,” she adds, soft lest he takes flight, and waits until he meets her eye.

Skye smiles.

“Maybe we can figure it out together ?”

Hesitantly, so slowly Skye counts her heartbeats while watching his movement, Grant puts his hand on hers like she did before. It sends a sort of pleasing jolt through her, and so she turns her hand around to press their palms together. His breath hitches.

Despite the dried blood, it’s probably one of the most peaceful moments they’ve spent together. The temptation to drive this further is huge, daunting. She looks at their joined hands, slowly allows her fingers to entwine with his. It is a grounding pressure. It is a memory, and a promise.

This moment feels suspended in a time that passes only at the rhythm of Grant’s breathing, and before she realizes it, she is breathing with him.

His fingers squeeze hers once, twice. His thumb shifts to press down on her wrist, her pulse jumping under it.

Afterwards, so long after it takes a minute for her to remember the question, Ward says in a breath that puffs against her cheek.

“Ok.”

It feels like an eternity before they exit that bubble they’ve created, but when they do it’s because she realizes she’s basically ran off in the middle of a mission and Elena is covering for her.

Reluctantly, she extracts her hand from his.

“I should go,” she softly answers his questioning look.

Ward nods.

Skye manages to turn around from him and goes to the bathroom to wash her hands. The dry blood is annoying to scrub off, and it takes longer than it would’ve if she had done it before.

It doesn’t matter.

Once out of the bathroom though, she has to get back on track. She is a spy after all, maybe it’s time she starts acting like one. Grant has put a clean shirt on, and she is grateful for it. The sight of him shirtless and bloody she can handle with his life in the balance and her digging a bullet out of his skin, but him shirtless without any trace of danger or blood is something she can’t handle right now. And she needs to activate spy-mode.

“Why did you raid that facility ?” She asks, restraining herself from telling him not to stand up with new fucking stitches.

“I got a lead that information about the Hydra agents sent after you were stocked there.”

“Hence the bomb.”

He gives her a small, hesitant smile.

“Diversion.”

“And you got the info ?”

He nods. Although they’re feet apart, it’s more intimate than any of their previous meetings.

With a wince, he fishes a flash drive out of his back pocket.

Once again, Skye bites back a smile.

“Most of the reports on the false death certificates autopsies. They’re… very precise. Too informed.”

“A mole in Shield ?”

“It’s the most logical explanation. The files are really detailed, so they were either written by Hydra with intel from someone within Shield, or an informant passed them the reports from Shield’s database directly.”

“Ok, but this doesn’t explain how they knew my location. It was an information even FitzSimmons didn’t have, just…”

“Morse knew, didn’t she ?”

“Yes, but she wouldn’t sell me to Hydra. Not after what happened with Palamas, not… She wouldn’t.”

“Would she sell you to Gonzalez ?”

She wants to say no, but something else leaves her mouth.

“You mean…. Shield did this ?”

“I don’t know.”

“All the agents were pronounced dead, it doesn’t add up. Unless….” A cold feeling washes over her. “We didn’t even check if they were the same guys,” Skye abruptly realizes. “The only info we have is the one we took from the attackers at the motel, not at the safe house.”

“Two attacks on the same agent on the same day ? That’d be a hell of a coincidence.”

“Not a coincidence.”

She had her doubts, but now there’s no wondering anymore.

She walks two blocks before thinking she’s far away enough from Ward’s location to contact Elena.

The latina picks her up in their car, hands her the tracker, and Skye announces to the others through the comms that she lost track of her target. There’s no questions asked from her other teammates.

Despite her curious glances all the way back, and the look promising that they will definitely talk about it later, Elena doesn’t ask. Skye knows she owes her an explanation, or at least some thanks.

But right now, her heart is in her stomach, and her brain is frying. She doesn’t even register her shirt is bloody and she’s clenching her fists so hard her knuckles are white.

As soon as they enter the base, she’s out of her seat, almost running through the corridors.

There will be reports to write, and explanations to make up. That’s later.

Right now, there’s the anger in her blood, making her power shimmer in her hands, making it coil, run through her like an incentive.

She doesn’t bother knocking one Mack’s door.

She doesn’t bother justifying it when he looks up at her, both startled and annoyed.

And then :

“Did Bobbi sell me out ?”

Mack looks everywhere but at her, mouth open in an apology he can’t give, and fuck this.

Fuck Mack, who acts like he’s sorry about everything.

Fuck Bobbi.

Fuck Gonzalez.

She marches like a fury to his -Coulson’s- office. Fortunately the door is open, otherwise she’d have tore it from its hinges, and Gonzalez looks up at her from his desk like he’s been expecting her.

“You sent them after me,” she spits without any care.

She half expects him to lie again, but Gonzalez lowers his pen, nods.

“You knew, all this time, that I had powers ?”

“Of course I did. I had two agents infiltrated in your team, don’t forget.”

“How could I ?” She rages at the realization that they told him, seething, before her eyes find his again. She hopes he can see the hatred in them. “So the attack….”

“We were simply trying to bring you in.”

“The attack,” she repeats, unforgiving, staring him down, “on the safe-house was Shield ?”

“Yes. With the help of the government’s new branch to treat with Inhumans. We have begun a cooperation with Rosalind Price, which proved to be extremely effective.”

“And afterwards ?”

“We lost your tracks. I do not know who went after you. I got a report of a man helping you, but he must be very good at what he does. Finding him was an impossible task.”

Shield at the cabin, Hydra afterwards. There really isn’t much more to it, is there ?

It makes her unbelievably angry.

“And you didn’t think to tell me that when I came back ?”

Gonzalez studies her like she’s an interesting case, like he can flip through the pages and stop whenever he wants. She wants to slap him.

“Would you have stayed ?”

“Of course not.”

He makes a hand gesture traduced by _exactly_. It makes her even angrier.

“You are too big of an asset to let lose.”

“So you would have kept me here.”

“Like you did with other Inhumans, yes.”

She blinks the warm shame away.

“What makes you so sure I’ll stay now ?”

“Your team.”

Her team, whose members she hasn’t seen in days. Coulson, who became a father to her, kept from her at arms length because of her powers, because of his position in the Shield from before, her Shield. May, her mentor, who has become her friend, who is the closest thing she has to a mother.

Fitz, his kindness, his pain, being locked up in his lab like kept away from the sun. Simmons, a sister who has become afraid of her, of what she can do. She’d like to have the chance to show her she doesn’t have to be scared. It’s like they’ve been locked in here like in a prison, kept from each other.

Her team, whose members have become both her family and strangers.

When she leaves Gonzalez’s office without another word, it feels like leaving a piece of herself in there.

Her hands are shaking.

Her thumb hovers above the dial button.

It’s already been twenty minutes, but the angry tears in her eyes haven’t left, no matter how many times she has tried to blink them away.

Her room has turned into a cell, and only at that moment does she realize how impersonal it is, how the only thing that’s in here is the little Hawaiian dancer FitzSimmons gifted her. Her van was way more familiar, and way more homely than this room could ever be. It’s awful, to try and reconcile the Shield that was her home and this new Shield where her purpose is as blurry as ever.

It’s that thought that urges her to press dial. It rings twice before he picks up.

“Ward ?”

When she left, he told her she should call him as soon as she had news. He also told her if Gonzalez tried anything, she could come to him. She almost hugged him then, but settled for a tilt of her head and a small smile before turning on her heels. Hearing his voice now, she can almost believe it’s alright.

“What’s going on ?”

“It was Shield,” she blurts out. “The attack on the cabin. Bobbi told them.”

Silence stretches on the line, and she hangs onto the sound of his slow breaths to try and calm her heartbeat, to try and calm her anger, her powers that seem to tear her apart. Her bones hurt, hurt so much, like the tremors are trying to splinter them.

It scares her, this rage. It scares her that she was fucked over once again. It’s all….

“I’m sorry.”

Skye lets out a weak chuckle that ends in a strangle, and lets herself fall back on the bed, studying the ceiling. There may be a shed tear or two, but it is lost in her imagining bringing the ceiling down on this room, on this base, on all the lies and false pretense.

“You can gloat. You told me so.”

“It doesn’t matter what I said.”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’d make me feel better.”

“Doubt it.”

Some time passes again. They were never that good at finding the right words, but somehow it’s ok. It’s the only thing alright today.

“Hey, Ward ?” She doesn’t wait for his answer, saying in the same breath : “Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

Alone in her room, she nods. There isn’t anything more to say, so the phone becomes dead silent. She isn’t sure which one hangs up, but the result is the same.  
She’s back to being alone, in her little room devoid of any personal decoration, and all is silent.

Shield. Hydra. As it’s always been.

Mystery solved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank your for reading, and for all of you who stick with this story despite the endless wait between updates, I really appreciate it, you keep me writing this story !  
> Don't hesitate to tell me what you thought about the "big reveal" *Pikachu face* that Shield isn't so great. 
> 
> By the way, if anyone find the NCIS quote in there, tell me ! ;) 
> 
> Hope to see you soon for the next chapter !
> 
> UPDATE: Hi guys, so I literally broke my arm yesterday and won't be able to write for a while, and the update will probably be impacted by that.... sorry, hope to write soon !!


	11. My heart is gold and my hands are cold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG my arm is finally healed so I can write again !   
> I'm sorry for the long wait, but this chapter is way longer than usual, so I hope it's worth it ! 
> 
> Enjoy ! 
> 
> This story is literally taking 10 years off my lifespan.

She decides to get on with her life, and manages it.

For about four days.

After everything that happened in the last few weeks, the abrupt inaction felt like hitting a wall.

First, it’s the idea that Hydra can still be after her that gets her moving, and maybe a part of her wants a distraction from the radio silence she’s gotten from Ward.

Oddly enough, now that he’s back in her life in a way that is far more intertwined with her private life, it’s worrying and off-setting to have him out of reach again. She tries not to think about his blood under her hands, tries not to think about the way he looked at her when she asked him to figure it out with her, tries not to dwell on any of those things.

Then, while reports are looked for and her computer runs well into the night as she tries to access the files about the team that went to get her from the safe-house, her curiosity derails from Shield and Hydra in favor of rejoining her other trail of thoughts, which is the question she finally dared to put words on.

After all this time, she figures she should at least learn some things about Ward, about what he did and what was done to him. She doesn’t want to know everything, of course, for many reasons (maybe she hopes he will tell her those things on his own, when he’s ready).

Despite all her endeavors, Skye cannot help herself.

It creeps up on her, the desire to know more. She has wanted to know more about him for a long time, as can testify her perpetual line of questioning, but now it’s knowing more about what he went through that piques her interest.

So she digs through Shield’s files on the Red Room, on Hydra brainwashing techniques.

And she learns some truly terrifying stuff.

Notably Lifton’s Brainwashing Technique, which is the one Garrett used on Ward.

It’s tragically easy: find a vulnerable target (a 15 year old boy whose life will be spent in prison if he does’t accept the offer), then isolate the target away from civilization and any conception of good and evil (5 years in the woods), and shape him as you want. Maltreatment, malnourishment, a system of punishment and reward… Everything is done towards the sole purpose of destroying the target’s sense of self in order to build them back up the way desired.

It’s extremely scary, especially when the realization really hits Skye that she knows Ward, she knows someone who went through this process and came out weaponized.

The first time she reads the twelve steps to destroying someone and thinks about a teen Grant alone in the woods with no supplies whatsoever, she cries.

Going over the files on Garrett, then on Ward, forces her to rethink most of the time they spent together. All the things he said to her, all the little moments, they all go under scrutiny.

Especially everything that happened after Garrett’s death, in that godforsaken cell where the light hit the scars just so she wouldn’t be able to look away.

Skye stares at her computer and cries ugly, painful sobs because his display of suicidal tendencies was a cry for help after his goddamn life was destroyed -because Garrett was that, was his entire life and his whole world- and they cast it aside like this man deserved nothing more than this cell filled with his past demons and the utter awfulness that was his poor semblance of a life.

Maybe she vilified him so she wouldn’t have to admit the truth: he wasn’t a simple bad guy. It was so much more complicated than that, and refusing to admit he was a victim of abuse stripped him from his very identity. Despite what he did, Ward was always trying to make things right, to do good, and it made her sick for a while, that he thought he was in the right. Until she realized he knew, and acknowledged, his mistakes.

Which is more than some of them can say.

Notably, the time she was sent down there to snatch the sliver of hope they had been dangling in front of him for months.

The time they decided his life was worth a piece of information. It didn’t sit right with her at the time, and she finally understands why now : they sold him to his abuser when they were done taking information from him. They decided he was _disposable_.

That is something they blame Hydra for, using people and then throwing them aside.

Of course, Skye knows the world isn’t manichean, that it doesn’t work like that, that Grant has stenches in his past that won’t ever go away no matter how much good he does henceforth.

But Grant was, first and foremost, a victim of abuse. 

She is smarter than that; she should’ve done something. It was learned the hard way in orphanages and foster homes: the abused becomes the abuser as long as you treat them as such.

Maybe Ward simply needed someone to recognize the fact that he was a victim before being a weapon.

She was so fucking naive, God. He never had the chance to be.

He was right.

She understands, now.

So yes, Skye allows herself to shed tears for their past mistakes, for all the ways he has been abused and hurt, between the beatings and brainwashing and rape that taught him he was no more than a bullet, for all the times she could see his pain and couldn’t understand it, for all the truths he tried to tell her in that cell, for all the scars that mark his body, some of them gained from her.

She cries for the boy, and then the man, and she thinks that’s ok.

To admit they were wrong. To admit that, maybe there’s still time to heal.

After consideration, it is better that she is without news of Ward, otherwise she wouldn’t have known how to act around him in light of her recent discoveries. Maybe she can try to clean the mess that is her situation in Shield before seeing him again, and take the time to digest what she learned.

But the situation in Shield is even messier than she expected. After Gonzalez’s admission, Skye takes to researching this Rosalind Price he spoke of.

(It only occurs to her afterwards that she could have just asked Coulson.)

Rosalind Price rises all the red flags in her head, from her newly found cell of research to her interviews about Inhumans, to her fascination for their powers.

Suspicion is a hard-learnt lesson for Skye, and she still remembers the men that went after her in the woods -they weren’t exactly friendly.

As with all things that spur any kind of uncertainty within her, Skye goes to Fitz.

She doesn’t expect Jemma to be here, but there she sits, on Fitz’s bed like it’s a bed of nails.

“Hey,” Skye greets, eyes jumping between the two scientists. But Fitz opened the door, so she figures it’s safe to ask : “Am I interrupting…”

“No,” Fitz says, not unkindly, but Simmons flinches anyway. “We’re done.”

“Fitz,” Jemma tries, but he ignores her.

“Come in.”

Skye does, though the scene hurts to witness. What happened between them while she was gone remains a blur, but it clearly isn’t good. Jemma looks at Fitz, who refuses to return her gaze in favor of studying Skye.

“What can I do for you ?”

“Have you ever met Rosalind Price ?”

Fitz frowns, and Simmons perks up in a same breath.

“Yeah,” Simmons answers. Her smile is small, more a front put up for Skye’s sake, but she’s grateful for it anyway. She has yet to touch the bracelet Simmons gave her. “She is brilliant.”

Fitz’s frown deepens.

“And dangerous.”

“Of course, but just like we are.”

The biochemist probably doesn’t mean it to sound like it does, like the last part of the sentence is implied : _not like Inhumans_.

Skye averts her eyes all the same.

“She is the one who sent a team after me, apparently.”

This time, their reactions are perfectly in sync. Straightening up, a look between them, lips tight. Fitz sits in the chair available, the empty space beside Simmons painfully loud, and his frown deepens.

“And Gonzalez agreed ?”

“Apparently. He’s the one who told me they founded a new cell to hunt Inhumans down and… I don’t know, study them ?”

“But you’re an asset to Shield, to the new brand Gonzalez is desperately trying to create. It wouldn’t make sense to send them after you and risk you falling in Price’s hands.”

“Or get killed. They weren’t exactly delicate, or straightforward with their intentions,” Skye points out.

No, they just barged in and started shooting (and then her bones shook and the house started stretching and splitting under her unwilling orders, shards flying all around, and she ran until Ward caught her wrist like a lifeline).

“Not exactly trustworthy behaviour,” she says, just to pull herself out of those memories.

“Politics,” Fitz snorts with a shake of his head.

“What are they doing anyway ? Why did they need me, and why is Shield working with them ?”

A look between them again, and the biochemist is the one to answer.

“Inhumans have achieved a certain… status within agencies lately. They just started popping up out of nowhere. Most of them are unable to control their powers. So they’ve become… Well… A threat.”

“What ? To whom ?”

“Does it matter ?” Fitz shrugs, tension tight in his shoulders. Skye wants to break something. “The agencies see them as assets, but if they can’t use them, then they’re a threat. Politics,” he repeats like it’s an explanation in and of itself, and it probably is.

Simmons nods along. When she speaks again, it’s as hesitant as Simmons can be when talking about science.

“The way to control their powers is through study, which is only available in a limited number of places. Shield is one, and Price’s laboratory, wherever it is, is another. Though they do have a major advance on us. But they’re not… Some aren’t exactly _willing_.”

Skye bites her cheek. It won’t do them any good if she snaps on Simmons, who has nothing to do with it. Her fight -if there’s one to pick- is with Price, and probably with an entire world she can never take on her own.

“But some don’t want the change,” Fitz adds, drawing her attention to where he’s tapping a pen on the left armrest. “Some prefer their life as it was.”

Simmons’ breath catches in her throat. Skye has an inkling it’s not due to the subject of their conversation, more like the accusation in Fitz’s voice and his pointedly not looking at her.

Eyes down and voice quiet, she specifies :

“They’re trying to find a cure.”

Skye’s head is spinning.

She could get rid of her powers. No more earthquakes, no more shattered bones, no more fear in Jemma’s eyes, no more secrets. No more cursed inheritance from her parents.

She could feel normal again.

_“Getting rid of it would… It would kill me. Don’t you feel the same ?”_

She feels herself nodding.

Elena’s words follow her all the way to her room, and even then they echo loudly against the four walls keeping her contained.

As soon as he enters the room, his presence is made painfully obvious. His height and size prevent stealth from ever being his forte, but now that she’s on her guards, it’s even worse. She’s too angry for this discussion yet, the betrayal still a hot iron poker stirring her insides and burning all it touches. She just wants to drink her coffee in peace, for Christ’s sake.

“I don’t want to talk, Mack.”

“Daisy.”

“Stop,” she snaps, bringing her cup down too forcefully on the counter, causing coffee to spill. She doesn’t care.

Mack looks apologetic, exactly like the last few times she has crossed his path, but it doesn’t make it any better. Especially when the words that come out of his mouth are the furthest thing away from an explanation or an apology.

“It’s her job.”

“Yeah ? And what’s your job exactly ? Sending your agents in the field while withholding crucial information ?”

From the look on his face, he hadn’t realized she knew. Tough luck, she thinks, picking her coffee up once more in the hope she can actually drink the thing in the peaceful quiet and blandness of her room.

“Thanks Mack. At least you showed me how this new Shield does things.”

He bristles.

“It’s not like that.”

“It is though,” she shoots back. “You send a team after me. You lead Hydra to me. And then you send me into the field without even telling me this is about the attack against _me_.”

“It was a breach of protocole, I couldn’t….”

“But you could tell Elena, right ? Whatever,” she mumbles, passing by him at a careful distance. “I’m asking for transfer from under your supervision.”

“Daisy, they might not accept sending you into the field then.”

She has thought about it many times, and has come to the same conclusion every time.

“Then I won’t go into the field. If it works like this now, I don’t want to.”

And Mack doesn’t have anything to say to that.

Because it’s the day of retribution or half-assed apologies, Bobbi finds her in the gym. Contrary to Mack, her strength resides in her capacity to wear multiple faces, to adapt to the situation. Evaluate the needs and adapt consequentially.

That’s all Skye sees on her face when she whirls around; a spy who has calculated the best approach and put on a sorry expression.

It doesn’t soften the blow that was her betrayal, and the fact that Bobbi cornered her here, as she’s trying to work out all her frustration and the thought of _I could be rid of my powers, I could do whatever I want, I could go back to before_ makes it even worse.

“We need to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” she snaps, stepping away from her. “I want you to leave me the fuck alone.”

“Daisy, please. Can we discuss this ?”

“No.”

“Daisy…”

“You know what ?” She blurts out. “You’re a fucking hypocrite. You talk about team work and loyalty to Shield and whatever the fuck, but then you turn your back on Kara Palamas, who was your partner, and then you set me up. I don’t want your apology, cause it’s meaningless.”

Bobbi doesn’t have anything to say to that, either, which is just as well considering Skye is done with that conversation. So she turns around, and resumes her routine until she hears Bobbi’s footsteps fade away.

As always, Hunter is a good buddy, which is why she agrees half an hour later when he asks if he can join her on the mats. They spar a little, but their fighting styles are so radically different that Skye gets uneasy, and then she gets mad at herself. Ward and May’s lessons are hard-earned, through training and dodging and efficiency, but Hunter fights like in a brawl, aiming where it hurts and without any delicacy to his movements.

They decide to move to the punching bag, and Skye takes to punching it like it insulted her, Hunter raising his brows at her in judgement from the other side of it. She grits her teeth, but after a mean hook that has him sliding backwards and sending her a reproachful glance, she explains.

“Bobbi screwed me over.”

“Welcome to the club. You get used to it.”

She hits the bag again, sweat pooling on her forehead.

“I won’t.”

“Why are you making me talk about this ? I’m no good at cheering people up, I’m good at punching them in the face.”

“You’re not good at that either.”

As if to prove a point, she strikes the bag again, throwing the blow with all of her frustration.

Except Hunter doesn’t take a step back this time; he flies across the room and crashes against the wall.

“Oh my God,” she exclaims, throwing her boxing gloves to the side and running to crouch next to him, “are you ok ?”

Hunter chuckles -like any of this is funny- and punches her arm.

“That’s cheating.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“No shit.”

There’s a sick feeling to her stomach, only slightly lightened as Hunter straightens up, eyes wide.

“Holy crap I felt that one.”

Skye fists her hands where they’re resting in her lap, willing the shaking to go away, chasing the image of Hunter thrown into the wall out of her mind, but it stays there, stubbornly playing on a loop.

She could’ve hurt him. If he had hit the wall in any other way, he could’ve broken his spine.

“I’m good, don’t worry,” he waves it off like it’s nothing, like she didn’t just use her powers on him without wanting to.

Skye breathes in, out, eyes prickling hotly. She could say it’s the smell of sweat getting to her nose, the pain of biting her lip too hard, the bite of her nails in her palms.

But it’s not.

This day is just going downhill. It’s like everything’s trying to convince her to pack her bags and leave.

Jemma’s teary eyes come back to mind, and Skye suddenly wonders if there’s anything left for her here.

“Stop that.”

“What ?”

Hunter grimaces and gestures at her face.

“Throwing yourself an inner pity party.”

“Fuck you,” she says without any heat. That’s why Hunter’s presence is good during days like this : he’ll treat her like always, and they’ll bicker like they’re in college instead of agents in an agency they don’t recognize and wonder if they belong in.

“Simmons told me they’re working on a cure.”

“You’re sick ?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“Oh, you mean the thing that allowed you to literally fly me across the room ? Oh yeah, terrible disease. Is it contagious ?”

“Fuck you,” she says again, but her fists loosen and her lips twitch up as she sits on her heels.

“Seriously, though. Are you mental ? You can do so many things with your powers, why would you want to get rid of them ?”

There are many things that surge to mind, most of them too intimate for a conversation with Hunter of all people.

So Skye settles for the less personal, most professional explanation there is.

“I would like the target removed from my back.”

Hunter snorts.

“Bullshit.”

“What ?”

“You’re a spy for Shield. There’s a target on all of our backs. Just look at me, half of the country wants me dead.”

“No wonder.”

“Piss off. This decision you have to make is for you and you alone. So figure it out, but think about it. Don’t take the easy way just because it’s easy.”

“Why do you act like you’re goddamn Dumbledore ?”

“I’m a very wise man.”

“You’re a dumb asshole who spits accurate advice once in a while.”

“How _dare_ you…”

Skye laughs and forgets for a split second how heavy the weight on her shoulders has become.

It’s suffocating to stay within Shield, to catch glimpses of Mack and Bobbi but rarely of her team, that seems further away every hour that passes. During her transfer procedure, there’s nothing holding her here, and so Skye warns FitzSimmons before disappearing off the grid. She loses both tails Gonzalez sent after her, and covers her tracks.

It’s as easy as breathing by now.

She checks in a hotel room much nicer than she would have indulged in before, but now that she doesn’t know how long she’s going to stay away from Shield, she’d rather be comfortable.

The name she gives the receptionist is as fake as her smile, and when she steps inside the room she can finally breathe. Here, there are no eyes on her.

Here, she is utterly common and unknown.

And yet, Skye isn’t even surprised when afternoon comes and she spots Ward on the sidewalk across from the hotel she just got out of. She simply bites her grin down and strolls all the way to him. In the back of her mind, she wonders what Fitz would have to say, seeing her walk towards him with a smile on her face and a certain bounce in her steps.

When she’s a few feet away, Grant pushes himself up from the wall and there is almost something like a smile on his face. The sight is unfair.

“Hey.”

She almost says “ _Aren’t you worried someone will notice you ?”_ But he’s the best at what he does, so what comes out of her mouth instead is :

“Can’t stay away, uh ?”

“Apparently not.”

Her hands fist in the pockets of her jacket, lest she do something stupid with them.

“What’s up ?”

He spares a glance around the street, which she takes advantage of to study the flittering shadows cast on the line of his jaw, the clear cut of his beard, the way his lips part when he looks at her again and says :

“Not here.”

They walk to the park nearby, which is smart of him, and they walk a bit closer than usual, hands almost brushing. They could pass for a couple, Skye realizes, then shakes herself. It’s better to focus on the easy way he walks despite the bullet she dug out of him just a week ago, better to think about what is at risk if they get caught. Fear is a wonderful incentive, they both know that, and so she focuses on it just enough to forget his proximity.

Still too close, they sit on a bench that offers an unobstructed view of the park.

“How are the stitches holding ?”

His glance slides to her, then returns to the people walking around and playing with their dogs.

“Oddly well. They look like they’ve been done by a professional.”

“I had to teach myself in the orphanage if I wanted my clothes to survive,” she shrugs. Her fingers suddenly itch for her phone, for something to prove she got out of there, has somewhere to belong now.

(But does she ?)

This moment, with Ward at her side in a park she doesn’t know on a random afternoon is more peaceful than any moment she spends at Shield.

It’s terrifying to realize.

Grant hums, drawing her eyes back to his profile. The scar on his forehead is partially hidden by dark strands, but if she focuses, she can’t not see it.

“I didn’t think you’d have the patience.”

Her eyebrows jump up before she can stop them.

“Did you now ?”

“You’re not exactly the patient kind,” he specifies. He’s still staring forward, but there’s definitely amusement in his face. She suspects he lets it paint his features because only his profile is discernable. Maybe he feels less vulnerable. Maybe it’s easier not to look at her, but on her part, she can’t tear her eyes away (it feels like a recurrent inability).

“Maybe I wasn’t,” she admits quietly. “Depends on the matter at hand I guess.”

“It takes ripped clothes or Hydra after you ?”

“Just about.”

He hums again. A dog barks, and Skye decides to look forward, too, just so she’ll stop trying to match his features to the one she imagines he wore at 15, scared and alone in an unknown forest.

The people keep going about their business, unaware of the danger both of them represent if given the opportunity. 

She wonders if Grant envies them. If he looks to the families, the couples, and thinks about the lack of this normalcy in his future.

Skye does.   
She’s jealous of this simplicity, of the careless way this girl with purple braids laughs into the wind, of the easy kisses traded between this couple, of the peaceful man sleeping in the open.   
She’s jealous of them all, has always been. She wonders if it’s the same for him.

“You took some time off.”

It’s a simple observation. She feels the sting of it all the same.

“Yeah.”

“Trouble in Paradise ?”

Skye can’t fault him for his curiosity, especially not when it’s said without any expectation.

“Difference of opinion.”

“Yeah,” he huffs out. “That’ll do.”

“Why did you come get me ?”

That earns her a few seconds of silence, like he’s trying to think of how to phrase it. When he manages, it takes her completely by surprise.

“I… I wanted to say thank you. For last time.”

“Like you said,” she shrugs, “I’m a good seamstress.”

His attitude is the right one; it’s easier, not to look at him.

“Not for that. For… For what you said. For what you’ve been doing.”

“Pretty sure you’re the one saving my ass every two days.”

“Yeah, getting real tired of that.”

There’s definitely a smile in his voice now, but she refuses to turn and see if there’s a matching one on his face. For what she wants to say anyway, she can’t face him.

“And you’re… You’re literally the only one helping me track Hydra down, so. There’s that.”

He probably notices how shaky her breath is, but he doesn’t comment on it. She’s grateful for that as well.

“Speaking of Hydra.”

“You’re not gonna give me files again, are you ?”

“No. I asked Kara to look into it.”

“You did ?”

She feels him shrug.

“Now that we’re sure it’s Hydra, she can help. She… holds a grudge.”

Yeah, no shit.

“She has contacts ?”

“She’s very… persuasive.”

Considering the tone of his voice, the tilt of amusement, and connecting it to their fierce protectiveness of each other, Skye would like to meet the woman more and more.

“Doesn’t it bother her, that it’s for me ?”

Ward takes his time again to answer. She has noticed it, how it takes him so long to talk, how he thinks and rethinks his every word; she doesn’t quite know what to make of it.

“She trusts me,” he murmurs eventually.

The way he says it makes her look down.

She changes the subject.

“Even thought the agents after me were Hydra, it doesn’t cancel the fact that they Shield first, so I kept digging.”

“No surprise there. What did you find ?”

“I finally managed to access the autopsy reports, which… was complicated,” she admits, though she hates that it took her so long to break through Shield’s defense.

She isn’t used to a program resisting her for more than a few hours, and this one put up a fight for _weeks_.

“The only thing I found was that the reports were all signed by Dr Inkef, and all go back to two or three months from before Hydra’s rise.”

“All of them ?”

She nods, quickly glances at his frown before adding :

“Some of them even during the same missions. It all adds up quickly when you start piling up the supposed deaths and their dates.”

“You’ve got the address to Inkef’s house ?”

She nods.

“Let’s get moving then.”

Once again, she’s surprised by how comfy his car is. It’s a different one of course, but after the bloody trip on his motorcycle, she’s grateful to be sitting in an actual car, with four doors and a windshield.

She’s even more grateful that Ward is humming under his breath along with the radio, a clear sign that he hasn’t realized yet he’s humming.

It must fuck with her head a little, the domesticity of the scene, because next thing she knows she’s blurting out :

“Shield and Hydra, uh ? Nothing has really changed.”

His humming stops instantly, for which she’s sorry.

“Everything has changed.”

And she would laugh at him for being this corny, but he’s actually right. Besides, their kind of people never do cheesy; it goes far deeper than that.

“Not Hydra.”

Grant groans.

“Once an asshole, always an asshole.”

“There are assholes everywhere.”

“Not like those. They’re _evil_ evil.”

“Well, their logo speaks for itself.”

“It’s a goddamn octopus,” he grumbles, eyes narrowed at the road “you couldn’t be more ridiculous if you tried.”

“That’s your main concern with Hydra ?”

“All I’m saying is Red Skull could have done his homework when he chose the symbol of a terrorist organization named _Hydra_. It’s not hard to put more _heads_ and not more tentacles.”

“Yeah, that’s a shame,” she taunts, biting her lip not to chuckle.

The tug of his mouth betrays his attempt at seriousness, and it’s moments like this she likes, moments where they don’t even care what they’ve been through, as long as it brought them here. Moments where they’re not wondering if one of them or their friends will die the day after, moments where they fall back into an easy banter that doesn’t betray any uneasiness or hurt.

She never thought they would be able to have that again.

“To be fair, we could talk about Captain America. Like, why is he called Captain ?”

“Right ?” Grant exclaims, one hand coming up in the air and brushing her arm. “He doesn’t have the credentials !”

“Well, he was a soldier, but that’s the end of it. I’m not even sure he has a license.”

He snorts.

Although being with Grant is easy in some ways, it’s still extremely hard in that it is endlessly confusing. She is always looking for some clue in his voice, his gestures, his inability to tell her to fuck off. With other people in her life, it was simple, slipping into something that was an extension of her comfort zone. Since the beginning, Ward was unfamiliar, a bit dangerous; enemy territory, she would call it now.

None of their touches are accidental, none are idle either; they have purpose. There’s no brushing her hair out of her face, no tracing the curve of his mouth, no fluttering her eyelashes or leaning in just a bit too close.

There’s awareness. There’s understanding as well, but there’s mostly carefulness. They’re always so careful with each other, with themselves, she’s never had that.

It’s too easy getting used to.

“You’re staring.”

“Sorry.”

Skye’s not really sorry, even less when he doesn’t add anything though her eyes are clearly still on him. She could be content seating here watching him for days. It’s captivating, the flickers he leaves on display for her to see, the scars he doesn’t mind her watching anymore, the changes brought by years.

He glances at her, huffs out a laugh, glances back at the road.

“How is the new Shield going ?”

Her shrug is too cavalier to be honest, but he isn’t looking at her so it’s alright.

“Not good. It’s hard to work with people you don’t trust.”

“I get that,” he nods.

“You do ?”

“Working with Kara, it’s… No matter what, I know she’ll have my back, and she won’t leave me high and dry. I’ve never had that before.”

“Not even with us ?”

As soon as she says it, she knows she doesn’t want an answer. The feeling intensifies with the pained expression taking over his features, and so she quickly changes course.

“Now that things are… different, I think we’re just all trying to figure out how we fit in.”

“You too ?”

“Especially me,” she chuckles, dry as sand. “With my… my powers, everything has been turned upside down.”

“How did your team react ?”

She doesn’t want to dwell on the your, doesn’t want to point out she doesn’t seem them anymore, doesn’t even know what assignments Coulson and May get, doesn’t know what project Simmons is working on, doesn’t know if Fitz has many contacts with them. So she doesn’t say any of it. She looks down at her lap, and mutters.

“As well as they could.”

Skye thinks they would be horrified, hearing her open up to Ward.

But more than that, there’s something in her blooming, a secret wish, a dangerous hope, born from Elena’s speed and Fitz’s assurances : that she might actually _embrace_ her abilities.

Considering the incident with Hunter the day before, it is likely she has been unaware of her powers’ humming for a while now.

It is just as likely she’s in denial as to what makes them settle down and, instead of growl, purr.

(The reason is sitting next to her with a finger tapping idly on the driving wheel, a slight furrow to his brow that seems to be permanent, a focus in his eye she loves to witness and loves even more to be the object of)

It’s not that she believes Grant is her answer or anything like that. But when her entire world has been turned upside down, he has somehow become the most familiar thing in the middle of it all, which is just… batshit crazy, when she thinks about it. From the beginning of this truce they’ve reached, he hasn’t disappointed her once, while all she’s feeling at Shield is a mixture of anger, deception, and betrayal.

She has never been good at waiting for the punch, at anticipating turnarounds and betrayals.

Skye gazes at Grant again.

Their job is about forgetting the fear of the blow.

She wonders if Grant is so good because he’s forgotten the fear, or because he’s never truly lost it.

All he’s ever known is violence. If only he was shown something else, maybe it would be enough.

Maybe it already is.

The house of Inkef is more resemblant to a mansion. They park the car down the road, Grant hands her a gun she accepts, her own still in the safety of her hotel room.

The security is non-existent, which is surprising considering both the house itself and the activities of its owner.

They holster their gun, and Grant knocks on the wooden, over-the-top door. After a few seconds, it opens.

The man appears small, more because of his shrunken back than his natural height, and has everything of a doctor, from the furnished brows to the small glasses perched on his crooked nose, thin lips pressed into a polite yet suspicious greeting.

“Hello Doctor,” Grant greets with a smile that is anything but friendly.

The man doesn’t have the time to answer before there’s a gun in his face.

The mansion is even bigger inside, overzealously decorated, every door and stairs ornamented, impressionist paintings hanging off the wallpaper-covered walls, and even if she didn’t know this man works for a Hydra, she could’ve smelled the corruption.

Doctor Inkef wipes his sweaty forehead for what must be the sixth time in less minutes, his little eyes jumping between her, Ward, and the door through his little glasses.

He looks a bit ridiculous, like one of those cartoon characters, and witnessing his stress almost makes her feel bad for the guy.

Until he opens his mouth, of course.

“I didn’t say anything to anyone, you have to know that.”

“What would you say ?” Ward asks like it’s the least interesting thing he’s ever heard. Sitting on the couch with his elbows on his knees and the gun hanging loosely from his right hand, an affable smile on his face, he is the picture of nonchalance.

Skye wonders if she looks the same from her own chair between the door and the doctor. This last looks between them again, lip quivering, and seems to shrink even more in the oversized armchair.

“Shield hasn’t even noticed the forgery, I swear.”

Ward’s anger is quiet, more dangerous than anyone’s she has ever met. It’s riskier than Coulson’s righteous rants, more dangerous than Fitz’s splutters and accusations, and speaks louder than May’s closed-off frustration, her anger expressed in movements that aim to hurt and have been repeated and learned and memorized to the second.

Ward’s is riskier. Ward’s anger puts her on edge, expecting and expecting, but nothing ever comes, until it does. She’s been on the receiving hand of it, in that hotel room, but now that it’s not directed at her, she can actually analyze it.

And Skye likes it, knowing his lips twitch at the same time his eyebrow arches up if he’s particularly annoyed by what someone is saying, the slight twitching of his trigger finger when he’s searching for a way out, or is just done with this. How he stands a bit straighter, makes himself more imposing if something a bit too reckless is said or a threat is uttered.

Dr Inkef is relatively calm before a display of this anger; she knows it’s because he’s unfamiliar with what he can actually do.

“See, Doctor, we’re actually here to speak with you about those autopsy reports you forged.”

“Why would you want that ?”

“We’re not Hydra,” Skye says, which seems to be the biggest revelation of the Inkef’s life.

He blanches, and Skye leans back in her chair, worried he might actually throw up on her.

“But… But… I saw you,” he pointed at Ward, “with Garrett, you were…”

“Things change. Now, Doctor,” he starts, leaning forward just enough to make the little man feel cornered, “you’re gonna tell us what you did to those reports, and who asked you to forge them.”

Inkef nods feverishly, wipes his brow again.

“I was approached two years ago, a few months before Shield crumbled.”

“By who ?”

“Jasper Sitwell.”

Skye exchanges a glance with Ward.

“He told me that in the weeks to come, he’d need me to write autopsy reports for corpse I wouldn’t have. Most of them were to die in a mission on the Playground.”

“Was there a real mission ?”

Inkef nods again.

“There was an explosion, like all the other mission the agents supposedly died in. Shield covered their tracks, both so no one would find the location of the facilities and to cover up the mistakes made, which was just what Hydra intended for. I signed death reports of a dozen agents, and made sure the cause of death was something that wouldn’t require to see a body, like crashed under facilities or an explosion, or a body that couldn’t be retrieved from its supposed location.”

“You covered up thefts of Shield facilities ?”

Inkef nods again, lower lip quivering some and eyes fleeing their accusatory gazes.

“I didn’t know what was happening, I didn’t… When I understood I didn’t know what to do, and Sitwell came again, and…”

“You took the money.”

“I didn’t know what they were doing, but when I saw that the “ _deaths_ ” all took place in Shield’s labs, or facilities, I understood that they were working on something big, that required pulling agents back. I almost told Fury. But then Sitwell died, Hydra rose and… And there wasn’t anything left to do, really. So I stayed under Director Gonzalez’s commands, and I never told anyone.”

“The drug,” Skye blurts out loud.

Ward raises an eyebrow at her, but it’s Inkef that talks.

“What drug ?”

Skye ignores him but shifts to face Ward, explaining quickly :

“The drug they used on me. It cancelled my powers. I thought it was just a fear-inducing drug, but as soon as they injected it I couldn’t even try to reach them.”

She turns towards Inkef again.

“You said all the agents were sent on mission in Shield’s labs or facilities ?”

“Yes. To make the death reports I had access to some information on the mission and I can tell you that in all the different missions, the tools they were supposed to protect were never recovered.”

“So they could’ve taken samples from the labs, tools from the Playground, research. The drug affected my powers directly,” Skye reasons out loud, frowning at her gun. “But how would they test it ? How could they even have had the necessary Inhuman samples to produce this if they didn’t have direct access to live subjects ?”

Ward perks up, following her train of thought quickly.

“You think they have Inhuman sources ?”

“Price,” Skye snaps. “She’s the leader of the newly found branch of Inhuman research, and she’s government. If she’s Hydra then there’s nothing easier than…”

“Just help herself to the resources at hand,” Ward finishes.

“And because of the cooperation with Shield, she had every information about me. She sent agents with the Shield team at the safe-house, she knew where I would be. And afterwards, Gonzalez must have told her about the meet-up with Coulson and his team, which explains the ambush. It all adds up !”

Ward whirls back towards Inkef, lightning in his stare. The man gulps down loudly.

“Do you know Rosalind Price or her operations ?”

“No,” Inkef exclaims, shaking his head desperately. “I was approached by Sitwell only, I don’t know anything about Hydra’s operations.”

Ward arches an eyebrow at her and Skye hesitates only a second before nodding her assent. The man si too scared to lie. Still, she moves her gun a bit too nonchalantly when she orders with a smile.

“We’re gonna need to see all the death reports you faked.”

When they leave the mansion after putting the fear of God inside the small, trembling Doctor, to assure he won’t speak a word of this, they leave with twelve new reports, twelve ex-Shield agents pulled back by Hydra to look for in order to understand what the actual fuck is going on.   
Skye feels oddly good about it.

That is, until she tells Ward the fourth name on the list :

“Linda Park.”

“Not her,” he responds immediately, not taking his eyes off the road for a second.

“Are you sure ?”

“Yeah. She’s not involved in whatever this is.”

Skye frowns, bites a cheek for just a second before asking :

“How do you know that ?”

“I know her. I worked with her,” he specifies at her unconvinced pout.

“Well that doesn’t mean…”

“I _know_ her, Skye.”

The emphasis makes it obvious, even if his lack of other reaction doesn’t. It almost makes her laugh.

“Do you sleep with all the women you work with ?”

It’s not said accusingly, nor is it meant to be. He still takes a while to answer, looking at the road for so long she wonders if she offended him.

“Depends,” he finally speaks up. “In the middle of a mission, and not just any mission, I mean the deep undercover missions where the only link to your previous life, your real identity, is the other agent. Well. Yeah, in that case, it’s not uncommon. It eases the tension, it allows the agents to get closer and have a reason for it, shall the opposition wonder about various meetings, and it also helps to get closer in order to know who you can trust.”

“I don’t really see how sleeping with someone can help though.”

“Agents in the field.... some of them get lost. Some of them find themselves at home in the debauchery and the gutters.”

“Not you ?”

His fingers start to drum on the wheel. Her gaze follows their rhythm.

“Sometimes.”

“And now ?”

“What now ?”

“With me. Do you feel lost ?”

He looks at her for a long time, eyes inquisitive.

“No.”

There is more to it, more than this simple word, but he’s probably not ready to say and she’s certainly not ready to hear it.

“So, you knew her in Hydra ?”

“She was an undercover agent, like me, but Shield sent us both in Myanmar to dismantle a terrorist organization. That’s when she told me she was waiting for Hydra to reveal themselves, and then she was done. It… It sounded like a good idea, at the time. I would’ve done it in a heartbeat. I would’ve taken my shot at freedom like she did, if not…” He breathes in, out, in again. She knows what he’s gonna say before he says it.

“If not for Garrett.”

Silence meets the name, this godforsaken name she keeps seeing written in the reports, this man she keeps imagining abandoning a fifteen year old boy in the fucking woods, this man she imagines beating the shit out of Ward before sending him to Shield.

She’d snap his neck in a heartbeat if she had the chance.

“Do you want to talk about it ?” Skye asks hesitantly.

Grant doesn’t scoff or rebuke her like he would have before, but contemplates the idea for a moment. The admission is clear in his eyes before it even breaches his lips.

“I wouldn’t know how to.”

“Well, that’s ok. If you figure it out, you can always tell me.”

Grant doesn’t thank her, but what he does surprises her even more.

Tentatively, he lifts his hand from the wheel to lay it between their two seats, palm up, in a silent invitation.

She puts her hand in his, palm against palm, not daring to intwine their fingers or to make this more than it is. His digits are warm when he squeezes, and she is awfully aware of how her lungs refuse to draw breath and how Grant is decidedly not looking at her.

He squeezes, once, visibly hesitates, and pulls his hand back to the steering wheel.

It might be her imagination, but his grip on the wheel seems too tight.

It might be wishful thinking, but his breath sounds too slow to be anything but dutifully controlled.

Skye lays her head on the window, and turns her smile towards her phone.

“Jesper MacLain ?”

Her stomach is grumbling by the time they park near her hotel, but it’s quickly forgotten when she gets out of the car and Grant follows her lead. She tilts her head to the side, quickly studying the shadows sharpening his jaw, making his eyes darker than they really are.

They start walking towards her hotel, both looking forward. It feels so _normal_.

Skye tilts her head towards him, wets her lower lip before daring :

“Congratulations, by the way.”

Confused, he frowns at her. She finds she likes it, this frown born of innocent confusion instead of annoyance or anger. She likes it directed at her, she likes that she can still surprise him.

“What for ?”

“You weren’t shot this time.”

His smile, when it stretches his lips wildly, makes her heart miss three beats.

Skye is dumbstruck at the sincerity, the untainted happiness of it turned full-force directly towards her.

“What ?” He asks at the look she must be giving him, smiling wider.

“I just... you’re smiling.”

It’s not the usual warmth of fire that is spurred when she stares at him. This time, it’s acid. It’s corrosive, sizzling as it seeps through his clothes to his bones and cracks them right open, fusing her heart to her ribs. It’s not fire, or the easy crack of a match, it’s eager and craving more and more, destroying everything in its wake.

Acid isn’t easy, no. Neither is her relationship with Ward.

Even now, he glances to the side, and her hands itch painfully, hidden in the pockets of her jacket like so many layers separating them.

He always kept his cards close to his chest, and no matter how much she wanted to, she never dared look too closely, lest she saw him shatter before her eyes, emotions spilling and spilling until she watched him drown.

He never did know how to handle joy.

“I do that from time to time,” he tells her, and his smile grows. He must not know what the sight does to her, otherwise he’d probably hide it.

“It’s quite a rare thing, a robot smiling.”

Ward laughs. It’s not his usual snort, not an amused puff of air. It’s a real laugh. A genuine, quiet, frail thing she’d like to bottle up, just to remember she witnessed it.

She doesn’t want to say it. Her affection for him has been dripping and dripping like gasoline out of a gas tank, leaking without her noticing and if she says the words to Ward, it’ll be the spark that burns it all to ashes.

It feels a story anew; it feels like they’ve never been here before.

It feels like they’ve been here a hundred times already.

It’s the same old story again, and again, and again.

But no, Skye decides as she watches him laugh softly, she won’t let it be. This time, she’ll fight for it. This time, there won’t be any hurting each other, at least not like before. If they hurt, they’ll hurt with meaning, with the knowledge it’s worth something and this is the furthest thing from a mistake.

Maybe he notices how she looks at him on the way up, in the elevator. Maybe he sees the fascination in her gaze, maybe the craving bubbling in her chest is painted clear as day on her face, because when they arrive at her door and she stands there, in the doorway, looking at him, he looks back.

“Do you... want to come in ?”

He turns his gaze away with a flash on his face that Skye recognizes as self-preservation, smile fading into the evening like it was never there (but she knows better, she has already committed it to memory).

“I... I would rather not.”

Thanking May for teaching her a passable poker face, Skye lets the blow land and nods.

Still, Grant must notice it, because he glances to the side, then back at her, and sighs heavily.

“I shouldn’t.”

“Why ?”

“Skye.”

And alright, maybe she’s fishing, maybe she’s taunting him but she cannot help it. She wants this to move forward. She wants him to come in and share a drink, wants him to let his guard down and smile again, and then she might want to kiss his smile away, open his shirt with curious fingers and trace his jawline with her lips.

She wants to do a lot of things.

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe it’s her time to wait.

This is about him, not her; for now.

“Good night then.”

She chooses concision, thus there is no way to reveal something she doesn’t want him to know (how her heart trips over itself when her eyes land on the phantom of his smile, or when he gets a little too close).

“Good night,” he echoes. There’s no smile now, but the softness of his gaze is enough to make warmth pool in her stomach.

She nods, not willing to close the door yet, and he must get that, because he turns around and walks down the hall.

His back is to her, and once again Skye is hit with a wave of affection for him, hit with the realization this is a way to show her he trusts her, that they’re past what happened in Puerto Rico.

When she finally closes the door, breathing through her smile is easy. And when she lays down in the bed and drifts off to sleep, she can’t stop thinking about the softness of his eyes and the curve of his lips (she doesn’t try to stop).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, I hope it was worth the wait !   
> Please tell me what you thought about Bobbi and Mack, as I don't know if I should write more of them, and about Grant finally opening up more easily to Skye.  
> Also, I swear May and Coulson will feature in this, it's just taking a hell of a long time to get there....   
> I hope it's worth it, don't forget to leave comments and kudos !


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